172 BEAUTIES OF BBITISH TBEES. [Jan., 



It is unnecessary to describe the shrub itself in any detail. 

 Either erect or climbing, the Rose generally produces long branches, 

 which bend in graceful curves, and trail along the tops of hedgerows 

 and thickets, hooking themselves up by their prickles, so that, though 

 tlie stems be weak and slender, the young leaves and flowers may be 

 well exposed to light and air. This is the raison d'etre of prickles. 

 Several exotic species of Eose are, however, thornless, whilst many 

 forms are also furnished with glandular hairs. 



The leaves, though they vary considerably in size, colour, texture, 

 and the number of their leaflets, are always remarkable for beauty of 

 outline. The delicately serrated margins of the roundish but pointed 

 segments, and the peculiar pair of ' stipules,' or leafy appendages, at 

 the base of the leaf-stalk to which they are ' adnate ' or united, 

 contribute to this beauty ; but it is undoubtedly of the forms, colours, 

 and perfumes of the flowers that we think first when we sing the 

 praises of the Eose. 



It is one of a very limited number of flowers which an artist, who 

 is not also a gardener, will admit to be capable of equal beauty when 

 either single or double. Our wild British species are generally 

 single, having usually but five petals ; but Gerard records the 

 White Eose {R. arvensis) as double in Lancashire ; and Herodotus 

 records, perhaps truthfully, the occurrence of Eoses with sixty petals — 

 probably the Cabbage Eose {R. centifolia) — in Macedonia. The 

 indescribable curvature and grace of outline of each individual 

 petal is common to both single and double forms ; but in the former 

 the exquisitely delicate whites, pinks, yellows, and flame-colours of the 

 petals contrast with the dark brown or clear golden yellow of the 

 stamens. Perhaps, on the other hand, it is chiefly in double Eoses 

 that we have the beautiful rolling back of the edges of the petals ; 

 and in these the chaste simplicity of the spreading cup is replaced 

 by new beauties of form arising from the charmingly disorderly 

 order, or abandon, of the crowded petals. It is such lovely Eoses 

 as ' Devoniensis ' or ' Niphetos ' that best illustrate my meaning. The 

 velvety texture of the juicy petals enhances the beauty of the 

 clearness and purity of their colouring. A violet Eose would jar 

 upon one as incongruous ; the dead white of our Hedge Eose 

 {R. arvensis), the blushing flowers of the Sweet Briar {R. riihiginosa), 

 the flaming Austrian Briars {R. punicea), and the whole gamut of 

 colouring in our garden Eoses, to ' Gloire de Dijon ' in one direction, 

 and to ' Charles Lefebre ' in another, all strike one as pure, free from 

 that muddiness which imparts a certain coarseness to every Dahlia 

 and to most Chrysanthemums. That this grace is largely due to 

 texture is perhaps evidenced by the fact that, outside the Eose 

 group, it strikes us most in the Clematis. The rapid fall of the 



