198 Mr. Woons on the British Species of Rosa. 
Common in hedges and bushy places throughout Great Bri- 
tain. 
-I rely upon the se of the leaflet and the entire margin of the 
petals, to distinguish this Rose from the R. villosa of the gardens, 
whose petals are crenate, a character pointed out to me by 
Mr. W. J. Hooker; and somewhat also on the smaller and less 
globular fruit: on the bracteæ, and on the shape of the leaf- 
lets, to separate it from R. heterophylla: on the entire margin of 
| the petals, to mark it from R. pulchella; and on the very pinnate 
leafits of the calyx, to divide it from R. villosa and R. scabrius- 
cula. The plant thus discriminated includes so many varieties, 
or perhaps species, that it is certainly the most intricate of the 
genus. It undoubtedly embraces the R. villosa of Hudson, and 
the Rosa sylvestris pomifera major nostras of Ray, which has usu- 
ally been quoted as a synonym of R. villosa. I should also feel 
confident that it included the Rosa villosa of the Flora Britannica, 
if the learned author had not assured me that that description 
was drawn up from the plant commonly known under the name 
of R. villosa in our gardens:—that, however, we have no reason 
to suppose a native of this country, though perhaps in the present 
state of our — we should find it difficult to trace it to any 
other. 
The characters proposed by British botébisfe to distinguish 
R. villosa from R. tomentosa, viz. the small ovate fruit and hooked 
prickles, do not by any means regularly go together. The size 
and shape of the receptacle and fruit vary much, as may be 
sufficiently seen in the ensuing catalogue of varieties ; and even 
under that appearance from which I have drawn my descrip- 
tion, indeed on the same bush, they may be observed large or 
small, more or less elliptic, more or less covered with sete, or 
quite naked. "The average mape in « is however wider than in 
some 
