A REMINISCENCE OF ROSES 



By S. B. Parish ■ 



\\I ^''''' ^^'^ ^ remember the hawthorn hedge that shut m 

 * * the privacy of an ancient mansion near the city which 

 was my boyhood's home. It was the "Cockloft Hall," of some 

 of Irving's earliest essays, and was a bit of rural England in 

 architecture and surroundings. I must admit that the hedge 

 was somewhat ragged and unthrifty, evidently unfited to ac- 

 comodate itself to this new world. But the eglantine, whose 

 errant branches overhung the gateway arch, found itself quite 

 at ease, content with its lot, and giving contentment to the 

 passerby. How sweet the fragrance of its foliage, how deli- 

 cate the pitik beauty of its blossoms! 



Later, in one of the Gulf States, I came to know the 

 Cherokee rose, clambering over fences and trees by the road- 

 sides, its masses of shining verdure set of? with abundant 

 bloom ut purest white. It seemed a true American, so full 

 was it of vig(;r, .so impatient of restraint. One learned with 

 surprise, — indeed, with a certain chagrin, — that it, too, was an 

 immigrant, and an Asiatic at that. But it must have estab- 

 lished itself at a very early period, for in 1803, Michaux had 

 no suspicion of its foreign origin when he gave it its first 

 botanical name. Rosa laevigata, and designated Georgia as its 

 habitat. Tiuis, by the rules of botanical nomenclature, an 

 American State becomes the "type locality" of a Chinese rose. 

 1 ha\e never again seen the eglantine, but some thirty 

 odd years ago I renewed my acquaintance with the Cherokee 

 rose, in a town in southern California, where I came upon it 

 leaning from the coping of a retaining wall, which is quite 

 concealed beneath its green luxuriance. It was then just be- 



