Mr. Woops on the British us of Rosa. 199 
some of the varieties; and perhaps » and £, in which they are re- 
markably elongated, might be taken for the Rosa tomentosa of 
the Fl. Br.; and the figure in English Botany is not very dif- 
ferent from those varieties. Ray, however, says nothing of the 
curved aculei of his R. sylvestris fructu majore hispido, the sy- 
nonym quoted by Sir J. E. Smith; while, on the contrary, he 
describes the fruit of R. sylvestris pomifera major “ fructus pyri 
parvi forma et magnitudine"—a description which appears exag- 
gerated if applied to R. tomentosa n of this essay, but which agrees 
with that variety better than with any other; but perhaps still 
better with an appearance sometimes met with in R. scabriuscula, 
Ray adds * spinulis obsiti;" a description which altogether does 
not agree with any fruit-I have seen; but which we may easily 
perceive cannot indicate the same thing as the “ germen glo- 
bosum" of Linnwus; especially if we sonido that in this fa- 
mily the fruit is uniformly rounder than the immature recep- 
tacle. Hudson bas merely joined the synonym of Ray to his 
R. villosa B, without adding any remark of his own to either 
variety. Lightfoot, F/. Scot. i. 261, has added, that the fruit is 
black when ripe; a — which renders his preise, very 
doubtful. 
In such a labyrinth what is the course to be pursued? I have 
already mentioned in the account of R. villosa, that in the appro- 
priation of that name I have followed the Linnean Herbarium. 
R. tomentosa is therefore left for this; and as the name cannot 
reasonably be objected to in a genus where it is so difficult to 
find names at all characteristic, and as some of the varieties are 
already well known under this name, I cannot hesitate to pre- 
serve it. The synonyms above quoted do not appear to me at 
all doubtful as to the species; but I have not attempted the dif- 
ficult, or rather impracticable, task of determining the correspon- 
dence 
