246 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The rose is mentioned by the earliest writers of antiquity. Herod- 

 otas speaks of the double rose; Solomon siDgs of the rose of Sharon ; 

 Isaiah of the desert that shall blossom as the rose. 



The old name of Syria meant the "band of roses," and from Damas- 

 cus came the beautiful ''Damask perpetual." Of all Syrian bloom, the 

 rose of Jericho is the most wonderful. There is an old legend that it 

 grew in the desert in places where the Virgin Mary touched her feet 

 when tleeing into Egypt with the Infant Jesus, and they say too it will 

 always bloom at Christmas time. 



This curious shrub will fold its leaves and flowers upward and 

 become dry, brown and shriveled, but if immersed in water its bloom 

 and foliage are suddenly renewed as if by magic or enchantment ; hence 

 it is known as the Resurrection rose. 



Among the ancient Eomans roses were used with a profuseness 

 and extravagance almost incredible in later times. 



When Cleopatra went to Cilicia to meet Marc Antony, she caused 

 the floor of the hall to be covered with roses to the depth of eighteen 

 inches. 



Lurks there the breath of coquetry in rose odor ! 



She who thus employed it is Shakspeare's best exponent of the art 

 of fascination. 



At a fete given by Nero, the expenses incurred for roses alone were 

 4,000,000 sesterees, or about $100,000. Eoses were used in wreaths and 

 chaplets to adorn the brows of poets and orators. The Greeks and 

 Eomans used them to ornament the statues of Venus and of Flora. At 

 their marriage ceremonies they played an important part, and were 

 often strewn in the aisles of churches. 



Tombs were covered with them, and many of the wealthy Greeks 

 and Eomans left large legacies for the especial purpose of ornamenting 

 their burial places with roses. Even at the present day the white rose 

 has lost none of its emblematic sacredness for bridal or burial. 



In Eoseburgh park, England, a rose tree marks the spot where 

 James II of Scotland met a tragic death, during the War of the Eoses. 



In league with Lancaster (red rose) his army attacked a battery, 

 one of the guns burst, and he who at Stirling Castle had dared and 

 slain the Douglas, was himself suddenly laid low. 



There is a strange fascination in these old histories of contention 

 for the English crown! The white rose victory at St. Albans and 

 Northampton, the death and defeat of York at Wakefield, again the 

 bloom of triumph at Towton, the march of the army of the crimson rose 

 to London and restoration of Henry VI, the flight of Edward IV into 



