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NOTE ON ROSA HIBERNICA. 1 



BY JAME)S BRITTEN, F.I^.S. 



In the Index Kewe?isis the publication of Rosa hibetnica is 

 given as " Sm. Engl. Fl. ii. 393 " [394] (1824). This is odd in 

 view of the numerous earlier references given for the plant in 

 the English Flora — Engl. Bot. t. 2196 (i8io,\ Smith's Com- 

 pendium, ed. 2, 78 (1816), Woods in Trans. Linn, Soc. xii. 222 

 (181 7), and Lindley's Monograph, 82 (1820) ; to which may be 

 added Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. 2, iii. 261 (181 1), and Smith in 

 Rees's Cyclopedia (181 4-1 5). The name is usually attributed 

 to Smith, who in his first publication of it in Engl. Bot. 

 says :-.-- 



"Discovered many years ago in the county of Down, about 

 Belfast harbour, where it grows abundantly, by our often- 

 mentioned friend John Templeton, Esq., who consequently 

 found himself entitled to the reward of 50/. so liberally offered 

 by the patrons of botany at Dublin for the discovery of a new 

 Irish plant. We adopt the name by which Mr. Templeton 

 has communicated wild specimens to us, for the singularity of 

 the anecdote, and that we may not rob him or his countrymen 

 of a particle of their honours." 



From the above quotation it is clear that the name was 

 suggested by Templeton, but it seems to have been generally 

 overlooked that he actually published it, with a full descrip- 

 tion and an excellent figure, in vol. iii. of the Transactions of 

 the Dublin Society, pp. 162-164, where he says : " As it has 

 not been before described, I may perhaps be allowed to give 

 it the name of Rosa Hibernica." The authors of the Cybele 

 Hibernica seems to have overlooked this sentence, for (p. 119), 

 they give " R. hibernica Smith " as the name of the plant, and 

 say ;— " First published in the Dub. Soc. Trails, iii. p. 162 

 (1802) [1803] and afterwards named R. hibernica by Smith in 

 1810." 



Reprinted by permission from Journal of Botatiy, August, 1907. 



