174 BEAUTIES OF BBITISH TBEES. [Jan., 



are very downy; their flowers are solitary, or in twos or threes 

 opening in June and July ; and their bright red fruits, ripeuiug 

 between July and September, are globose, and generally densely 

 covered with bristles and glandular hairs, the ^Dersistent sepals that 

 crown them being also glandular. The members of this group, which 

 are chiefly wild in our northern counties, have but little distinctive 

 beauty, but may well be mixed with other tall-growing briars in those 

 tangled clumps of Hawthorn, Clematis, Woodbine, Briar and Bryony, 

 that form the chief beauties of many a ' rough bit ' of common land 

 or park. 



The Sweet Briars form small, sub-erect bushes, sometimes very com- 

 pact in growth, but sometimes sending out long arching branches, and 

 always distinguished by the leaves, which are almost hairless, but 

 densely covered with glands on their lower surfaces, from which, in 

 the various forms, more or less of the characteristic perfume is given 

 off. Their stems bear scattered hooked prickles, with bristles and 

 glandular hairs, and the delicate pink flowers, opening between May 

 and August, are succeeded in September and October by smooth red 

 fruits that vary considerably in shape. These plants mostly rejoice 

 in a limestone soil; and the sweet-scented ones, giving off their perfume 

 freely under the influence of summer sunshine, should be planted in 

 open spaces. The most fragrant form has the most compact habit and 

 the most deeply coloured blossoms ; but the less fragrant ones {B. 

 micrcmtha and R. senium) are well worthy of a place in the tangled 

 clumps before alluded to, for the sake of their trails of pink flowers. 

 Very variable are the Dog Eoses. They are the largest and loosest in 

 habit of our British Eoses, and may in general be distinguished by their 

 scattered, strong hooked prickles, their leaves and flower-stalks 

 without glands or hairs, and their distinct styles. The leaves are, 

 however, occasionally hairy on their lower surfaces, and may even 

 have a few glands on the veins, and vary considerably in the num- 

 ber, size, and serration of their leaflets. The flowers open in May or 

 June, and are generally tinged with pink; but they differ much in the 

 number in each cluster, and they are scentless. It is hardly worth 

 while for the practical planter to risk the loss of_his patience, if not of 

 his reason, in the attempt to discriminate the botanical characters of 

 the thirty or so named varieties of the species. Let him take seed- 

 lings, or suckers, of some free-growing kind, with long trailing, 

 branches and tliickly clustered blushing blossoms, and, whatever its 

 name, it will be, in the tangled clump, ' a thing of beauty and a joy 

 for ever.' 



' What is it '? A learned man 



Would give it a clumsy name : 

 Let him name it who can, 

 The beauty is still the same.' 



