40 A LIST OP BRITISH ROSES 



GROUP OMISSA. 



The difl&culties of this group do not end with its limitations. 

 Its species are distinguished from one another on paper mainly by 

 the presence or absence of subfoliar glands, by the curvature of 

 the prickles, and by the shape of the fruit. The first character is 

 a very unstable one in the whole of this subsection, and although 

 a broad distinction may be made between straight, falcate, and 

 hooked prickles, the intermediate stages are far too numerous, and 

 I doubt the propriety of placing much reliance on their form. 

 The shape of the fruit is, at least in the other subsections, of great 

 importance, yet one is compelled in some cases to associate very 

 different forms of it. There is great difficulty in compai'ing our 

 forms with the continental ones, from the fact that six of our ten 

 names are those of British authors, and only one of these is 

 recognized on the Continent at all, viz. B. Sherardi Dav. (under 

 the name of B. siibglohosa Sm.), and that is regarded as a Tomen- 

 tosa form. As I have elsewhere stated, I doubt whether the 

 relative persistence of the sepals is a satisfactory primary character 

 for segregating the group. For reasons given under the group 

 Tomentella, I prefer to call the present one Omissa, though I have 

 taken a wider view of it than is taken on the Continent. It 

 cannot be conveniently divided into subgroups. 



E. OMISSA Des^gl. in Billotia, p. 47. The fruit of this, accord- 

 ing to description, should be obovoid-pyriform, but to judge from 

 Deseglise's own specimens it is subglobose, only the middle one in 

 each cluster of three being somewhat produced at the base into 

 the petiole, but hardly pyriform. The prickles are shghtly curved, 

 hardly falcate, but seldom quite straight. The sepals remain 

 till the fruit is ripe or nearly so. The peduncles vary in length 

 up to that of the fruit ; our forms seldom have their peduncles 

 shorter than the fruit, which is also more often subglobose than 

 pyriform, so that they can with difficulty be distinguished from 

 B. resinosoides. A white-flowered form is found in Perthshire, 

 but normally the flowers are deep rose. V.-c. 42, 55, 88, 96. 



E. RESINOSOIDES Crep. ex Cott. Bot. Cant. Frib. p. 168. This 

 may be regarded as a long-peduncled form of B. omissa, with the 

 leaflets often less hairy and more glandular, giving them a rough 

 feeling like those of B. scabriuscula, but softly pubescent forms 

 are nearly as frequent. I am doubtful whether forms with very 

 few subfoliar glands are correctly referred here. The fruit in my 

 specimens varies from subglobose to obovoid-ellipsoid. Speci- 

 mens with the latter form of fruit were distributed through the 

 Watson Bot. Exch. Club in 1908 by Mr. Barclay, labelled B. 

 tomentosa Sm. var., viz. his Nos. 10, 16, 20, and 24. They are, of 

 course, much off type, and Crepin denied the identity of at least 

 one of them with his species, but I know no other suitable name. 

 The Hereford specimen is very near B. mollis, its sepals persisting 

 on the ripe fruit ; it has much the look of var. submollis, but its 

 leaflets are very glandular beneath. White-flowered forms occur. 

 V.-c. 17, 36, 43?, 58, 62, 65, 78?, 79?, 80, 88, 89, 92?, Antrim, 

 Down, Mayo?. 



