Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 229 



described by the Greek and Roman writers of antiquity ; also of the 

 modes in which roses were cultivated, their periods of flowering, and 

 the various uses to which they were applied. Theophrastus and 

 Pliny appear to have given the fullest account of the rose, the former 

 enumerating five kinds of roses, the latter fifteen, eleven of which, 

 he says, were familiarly known to the Romans. After comparing 

 the descriptions given by these authors with those of Dioscorides, 

 Clusius, and other writers, Mr. Falconer proceeded to give an ac- 

 count of the ancient rosaria or rose plantations, collected from the 

 various works of Pliny, Columella, and Palladius ; also of the means 

 employed for propagating and forcing roses, mentioned by Theo- 

 phrastus, Didymus, Pliny, and Seneca. The different localities re- 

 nowned for their roses were next stated ; Nicander, Athenseus, and 

 Pliny, being the principal authorities on this point. Among the 

 ancients the rose was employed medicinally at their festivals and at 

 their sacred ceremonies ; also as an article of luxury at their banquets 

 and for making unguents. The uses of the rose among the Greeks 

 and Romans were nearly the same, the latter nation, however, using 

 them more profusely, and setting a higher value upon them. Ana- 

 creon was the first author whom Mr. Falconer could find to have 

 mentioned the rose, and he flourished about 600 years B. C. My- 

 repsius, a medical writer of the 13th century, was the latest author 

 quoted. 



A communication from Mr. Edwin Lees of Worcester was then 

 read, giving an account of a specimen of Pyr us domestica, Sm., or 

 Sorb -tree, now growing in Wyre Forest, Worcestershire. Mr. Lees 

 thinks it probable, from the situation of Wyre Forest, on the con- 

 fines of three counties, Worcester, Salop, and an isolated portion of 

 Stafford, that this locality for Pyrus domestica may have been inad- 

 vertently multiplied ; and that the station given by Dr. Plot and 

 Ray in the " Moorlands of Staffordshire," may possibly refer to the 

 specimen in question, which, however, is situated in the parish of 

 Rock in Worcestershire, about three miles from Bewdeley. From a 

 close inspection of the locality, Mr. Lees is inclined to think that the 

 tree alluded to is not there indigenous, although probably entitled to 

 an antiquity of not less than 400 years. The vestiges of a habita- 

 tion and garden he thought might be traced in some bricks and re- 

 mains near the spot, and in the presence of solitary specimens of Li- 

 gustrum vulgare and Prunus domestica, the only individuals which he 

 observed in the w T hole forest. The tree when visited in 1836 was much 

 dilapidated, and presented the appearance of extreme old age, in the 

 battered state of its bole, great height (about sixty feet), broken 



