SEPTEMBER. 193 



THE MOSS ROSE. 



There is much, that is obscure concerning the history of the 

 Moss Rose. Some say it was originally introduced from Hol- 

 land, and others from Italy, about the year 1735 ; and it is 

 generally believed to have been a sport from the Provence. 

 Its beauty and fragrance have made it peculiarly the poet's 

 flower, and the mystery overhanging its origin has given free 

 license to the imagination. We remember to have read a 

 very pretty tale in verse, in which the Goddess of Flowers is 

 represented as sleeping beneath a Rose-tree, and on awakening 

 casting over the flower a veil of moss, in return for the shade 

 and fragrance it afforded her. If this is highly poetical, we 

 have nothing to offer in its place but what is supposititious, 

 and must therefore leave the question to poetry or conjecture. 

 Perhaps we have as yet no variety to surpass the original 

 in beauty ; the seedlings raised from it, though differing in 

 colour, are generally inferior in form and fulness, so that any 

 onward step is a source of congratulation. 



Many of our best kinds have hitherto been the result of 

 " sporting."* Mr. Shailer, of Battersea, states that the White 

 Moss (1788), the Striped (1788), the Single Red (1807), the 

 Scarlet (1808), the Sage-leaved (1813), and the Moss de 

 Meaux, are all due to this peculiarity of nature, the two 

 former having originated at his father's nursery at Chelsea. 

 Mr. Paul, in the Rose Garden (division ii. p. 32), has the 

 following remarks on this tendency in Moss Roses : " Some 

 tribes of plants are more disposed to sport than others ; and 

 the Provence and Moss Roses possess this peculiar property 

 in a remarkable degree. I have seen the White Moss bearing 

 at the same time, and on the same plant, red, white, and varie- 

 gated flowers ; I have also seen the Perpetual Moss, whose 

 flowers should be white, produce pink flowers entirely destitute 

 of moss! I am informed, and think it probable, that the 

 Moss Unique was first obtained in this manner ; a branch of 

 the White Provence Rose produced flowers enveloped in 

 moss ; the branch was propagated from, and the plant so pro- 

 pagated produced flowers retaining their mossy characteristic." 



Mr. Paul informs us that the subject of our present plate, 

 Princess Alice, is a genuine seedling, raised by himself from 

 a sowing made in the Cheshunt Nurseries, in the spring of 

 1847. The parentage is not preserved; but he remembers 



• ** Sporting" is a term used to express the tendency of certain plants to 

 produce occasionally flowers differing from what they usually bring forth. 



N£W iftRIKS, VOL. III. NO. XXXIII. S 



