O ON TirE BOTAXICAL ORIGIN OF ATTAR OF ROSES. 



ON THE BOTANICAL ORIGIN OF ATTAR OF ROSES. 

 By J. G. Baker, F.L.S. 



Since the publication of his *' Pharmacographia," Mr. Hanbury has 

 received from Vice- Consul Dupuis of Adrianople, a packet of speci- 

 mens of the rose which is cultivated on the slopes of the Balkan for the 

 production of Attar of Roses. He has handed these over to me with a 

 request that I would compare them and report the result. There 

 can, I think, be no hesitntion in referring seven-eighths of the speci- 

 mens to Rosa damascena, Miller, the plant which, upon the authority of 

 Von Mohl, is already accepted as the origin of the perfume. It has 

 all the characteristic marks of Rosa damascena, large, oblong leaflets 

 broadly rounded at the base, finely downy all over beneath, with 

 broad simple serrations, slightly hooked main 'prickles, peduncles and 

 branchlets densely clothed with unequal glandless and gland- tipped 

 aciculi like Ruhis Gimtheri among the Brambles, calyx-tube narrow, 

 turbinate, twice as long as broad, rather contracted at the neck and 

 deltoidly narrowed into the peduncle and clothed with similar setae, 

 narrow sepals f-1 inch long downy and slightly glandulose on the back, 

 geuerally two out of the five compound, and densely villose styles. The 

 Balkan plant quite matches one called R. damascena simplex from the 

 Luxemburg Garden in Gay's collection, and the R. calendarum multi- 

 plex rosea of Seringe's Exsiccata, No. 17, which he quotes in the 

 ** Prodromus," under his R. damascena, var. densiflora. I look upon 

 R. damascena as most likely a cultivated race of R. gallica, which 

 spreads in a wild state from France to Kurdistan (In dumetis montes 

 Pir Omar Gadriim, alt. 4000 feet, Haussknecht 368 !). It differs from 

 the ordinary wild gallica only by the shape of the calyx-tube and 

 fruit (narrow turbinate instead of round) and by the leaflets being less 

 rigid in textnie, downy all over below, with less prominent venation. 

 Another sheet in :Mr. Hanbury's herbarium marked " This is the rose 

 cultivated in Turkey for the production of Attar of Roses, sent by 

 Professor Dr. R. Baur, of Constantinople, to his father. Dr. Baur, of 

 Blaubercn, Wirtemberg, who has the plant in cultivation," is evi- 

 dently R. turhinata, Alton, Lindley JMon. Ros., p. 73 {=R. campanu- 

 Iata,l^hrh.=R.fratico-Jlntensi8,B:ort.). This is most likely another 

 cultivated race of R. gallica, differing from the type much as a prize pig 

 differs from the wild boar. It has leaves like those ofR damascena, and 

 peduncles similarly aciculate, but flower doubled to an extravagant 

 degree with a hemispherical calyx-tube, sepals with a broader lamina 

 and the two largest but slightly compound. A plant from Mr. Han- 

 bury s garden at Clapham looks appreciably nearer the wild R. gallica 

 than Dr. Baur's specimens. I have also picked out of the Balkan 

 packet a few scraps that most likely belong to Rosa alha, Linn., 

 marked by a leaf of different texture, with sharper teeth, and oblong 

 caiyx-tube with fewer but more distinct aciculi, peduncle with very 

 tew, small aciculi, and styles much less densely pilose. 



