CLASS XII. ORDER III.] ROSA. 



707 



7. R. tomento'sa, Sm. (Fig. 803.) Downy-leaved Rose. Root shoots 

 curved; prickles scattered, uniform; leaflets ovate, acute, downy, 

 doubly serrated, glandulose ; fruit setose, or smooth ; calyx segments 

 copiously pinnate. 



English Botany, t. 990.— English Flora, vol. ii. p. 384.— Hooker, 

 British Flora, ed. 3. vol. i. p. 234.— Lindley, Synopsis, p. 100. 



^./atida, Lind. Leaves nearly smooth on the upper side. 



Lindley, Synopsis, p. 100— R./cetiduy Batard.— jR. Scabnus cuhia. 

 —English Botany, t. 1896.— /3. English Flora, vol. ii. p. 384. 



Root with creeping suckers. Shrub from six to eight feet high, 

 branched and spreading, the shoots erect and straight, or curved, the 

 bark of a somewhat glaucous green. Prickles not very numerous, 

 straight, or slightly hooked, equal, prickles often in pairs beneath the 

 leaves, or scattered singly, and without any seta amongst them. 

 Leaves numerous, the common footstalk downy, scattered over with a 

 few glands, downy, and sometimes having a few short bristles scattered 

 upon it. Leajlets from five to seven, clothed with downy pubescence, 

 the upper side sometimes, though rarely, quite smooth, and more or 

 less scattered over with glands, paler beneath, and when bruised has a 

 turpentine smell, of an elliptic oblong or ovate obtuse or acute point, 

 the margins with compound spreading serratures, mostly regular, 

 though often cut at the ends in those which are obtuse. Stipules^ale^ 

 often narrow, concave, with dilated spreading points and glandular 

 fringed margins. Flotoers solitary, or three or four together, on short 

 smooth or bristly stalks. Bracteas ovate or oblong, downy, and some- 

 times glandular. Calyx with a round ovate or oblong tube, bristly, 

 rarely smooth, and of a dark purplish glaucous green, the segments 

 long, very compound, with narrow linear serrated pinnse, downy, 

 glandulose, and bristly at the base. Petals obcordate, concave, pink 

 or white, sometimes white, with red patches. Bisk thick, fleshy. 

 Styles with prominent downy stigmas. Fruit roundish, obovate, or 

 ovate, depressed, of a deep scarlet colour, bristly, crowned by the per- 

 sistent converging calyx segments, until the fruit is ripe, when they 

 usually fall away, soft and pulpy, with a pleasant acid flavour. 



Habitat. Woods and hedges, frequent; /S. near Newcastle. 



Shrub; flowering in June and July. 



This is an extremely variable plant, which becomes more or less 

 thickly clothed with pubescence, and bearing a greater or less num- 

 ber of prickles, according to the situation of its growth, and the nature 

 of the soil in which it has grown. In the less pubescent varieties, with 

 arched shoots, it approaches R. canina, and those with the calyx seg- 

 ments less divided than is usual. It is sometimes difl&cult to distin- 

 guish them from R. villosa. 



It is one of the more common species of our Roses,— flowers which 

 add so much beauty to the rural lanes and woods, whence the lover 

 of Nature's works derives such rich stores of enjoyment 



