14 THE NATURALIST. 



count of the extreme beauty of the ovary when viewed with the microscope. 

 The entire surface is covered with silicious stellate "hairs," resembling 

 those of the leaves, but much more delicate, and in admirable condition 

 from the circumstance of the plant being kept under cover, and thus free 

 from dust. 



EEVIEW OF THE BRITISH EOSES, 

 ESPECIALLY THOSE OF THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 



Br J. G. Baker, Esq., of Thirsk. 



Part I. 

 In Britain, of late times, comparatively little attention has been paid 

 to our indigenous Roses, and hardly anything has been written about them 

 during the last thirty years. Eosa is one of those genera, where a 

 difference in the point of view from which an author looks at the great 

 species question, makes the widest difference in the number of species 

 which he acknowledges. Where M. Grennier enumerates only Q3 Roses 

 for the whole of France, M. Deseglise describes or mentions 107 in his 

 elaborate monograph of the French Roses, and M. Boreau, in the last 

 edition of his Flora, gives 74 for the Central Departments only. In the 

 present state of the literature of the subject, to write a monograph of the 

 European Roses, to group the combinations of subordinate value into 

 species which well marked characters separate, to trace out the synonymy 

 of these latter, and their distribution through the different countries, to 

 clear up, or cast aside as impossible to be cleared up, the crowd of species 

 which have been imperfectly described, would be a very laborious task. 

 But a large proportion of the species of major, and apparently a larger 

 proportion still, of those of minor value, do not extend their range into 

 Britain ; and for us to satisfy ourselves about our indigenous species, and 

 their distribution within the limits of the island, does not seem to be 

 very difficult of attainment, after what has been already done. What I 

 propose to do in this paper is principally to narrate my own experience of 

 the North of England Roses, and their distinctive characters. There is 

 hardly any genus of plants in which there seems to be a greater diversity 

 of opinion, as to what characters are of value for diagnostic purposes : and 

 unless in the handbooks, tho descriptions in these critical genera are 



