708 ROSA. fCLASS XH. ORDER III. 



" Along the sunny bank or watery meaJ, 

 Ten thousand stalks the various blossoms spread : 

 Peaceful and lonely in their native soil, 

 They neither know to spin nor care to toil ; 

 Yet with confess'd magnificence deride, 

 Our vile attire and impotence of pride. 

 The Cowslip smiles in brighter yellow dress'd, 

 Than that which veils the nubile virgin's breast. 

 A fairer red stands blushing in the Ease, 

 Than that which in the bridegroom's vestment flows." 



Pryor. 



S. R. villo'sa, Linn. (Fig. 804.) Villous Rose. Root shoots erect, 

 coloured ; prickles nearly straight, uniform ; leaflets ovate, downy, 

 glandulous, doubly serrated ; fruit ovate, drooping, setose, or smooth ; 

 calyx segments scarcely pinnated. 



English Flora, vol. ii. p. 382. — Hooker, British Flora, ed. 3. vol. i. 

 p. 232.— -R. mollis, Linn. — English Botany, t. 2459.— Lindley, Sy- 

 nopsis, p. 100. — R. mollissimaf Willd. 



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

 with erect not arched shoots, much branched in an irregular manner, 

 the bark varying in colour from grey to purple, often marked in 

 coloured patches. Prickles few, scattered, straight, slender, or slightly 

 curved, mostly in pairs beneath the leaf, or scattered singly on the 

 stem, without any seicB amongst them. Leaves mostly numerous, the 

 common footstalk downy and glandulose, with a few very slender pale 

 prickles on the under side. Leaflets five to seven, ovate or elliptic, 

 obtuse, or acute at the point, downy, especially beqeath, and more or 

 less scattered over with glands, often grey with down paler beneath, 

 the margins, with spreading mostly regular serratures, the secondary 

 ones very small, fringed with glands. Stipules thin, pale, concave, 

 downy and glandular, the points spreading. Flowers from one to 

 three or four, sometimes very numerous, the peduncles short, and as 

 well as the calyx tube greyish green, sometimes purplish, more or less 

 thickly clothed with bristles, rarely naked, the calyx segments downy, 

 glandulous, and bristly at the base, sometimes simple, pinnated, but 

 rarely leafy. Petals obcordate, concave, rather longer than the calyx 

 segments, of a deep pink colour, sometimes white, and at others white, 

 with pink patches. Disk fleshy. Styles with prominent downy 

 stigmas. Fruit elliptical, or globose, of a purplish red or crimson 

 colour, with a grey bloom upon it, bristly, and mostly pendulous, pulpy 

 when ripe. 



.Habitat. — North of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; not 

 uncommon. 



Shrub; flowering in June and July. 



Many of the varieties of this plant are so nearly allied to R. tomen- 

 tosa, that it is difficult to know to which species they belong; and we 

 are not sure if it would not be belter to unite them together, as is done 



