16 ROSA RAPA. 
A very handsome species with numerous double red 
flowers. It was first distinguished by Bosc in the Dic- 
tionnaire d’ Agriculture, but by some mistake called a 
native of Scotland, which has been copied by every 
successive French author. Redouté’s figure is of a 
much greener colour than I have ever seen it in any 
state. I possess specimens gathered in the Southern 
states of North America by Mr. J. Fraser, and I am 
obliged to Mr. Robert Sweet for fine fruit, which is 
very rarely produced. 
This is a plant with which I have been long ae- 
quainted, and I can by no means assent to the opinion 
that it is a variety of R. lucida. Doubtless they must 
be placed next each other in a natural disposition of 
the genus, but otherwise they are as distinct as species 
can be. R. lucida is a compact bush with dense, stiff 
leaves, and armed with prickles under the stipulze ; its 
flowers sit close among the leaves, and the mouth of the 
fruit is by no means wide; the ‘sepals also converge. 
This, onthe contrary, is a naked straggling brier, with 
scarcely a vestige of prickles on the shoots ; its flowers 
are on long stalks, the mouth of the fruit is so wide that 
the fruit itself is nearly hemispherical, and the sepals 
are reflexed. 
