PREFACE. 
Ir is necessary, before I enter upon the imme- 
diate subject of the following pages, to give 
some explanation of the reasons which have in- 
duced me to intrude upon the attention of the 
public. Not because every one does so, but be- 
cause a fresh attempt to accomplish what has 
repeatedly and recently failed in the hands of far 
more experienced botanists than myself, would 
without it appear, to say the least of it, pre- 
sumptuous. 
Although the number of publications on the 
present subject is already too considerable, and 
their authors, in many instances, men of esta- 
blished reputation; yet nothing is more notorious 
than the almost inextricable confusion in which 
Roses are to this day involved. This however 
may perhaps be in some measure explained by a 
careful examination of the principal works, and 
of the circumstances under which they have 
been severally composed. 
Some of them are mere masses of figures, 
and those frequently not of the best kind, with- 
out any scientific pretensions, either to arrange- 
ment, or correctness of delineation. In other 
