BAKER ON BRITISH ROSES. 35 



and in North Yorkshire reaches 500 yards above the sea level. Mr. 

 Watson's specimens shew a diffusion in Britain from Orkney (J. T. Syme) 

 to the Isle of Wight (A. G. More), but its distribution in the South of 

 England apart from tomentosa still wants working out. The same may be 

 said of its distribution in Central Europe. Crepin gives it as a Belgian 

 species, — Reichenbach unites it with pomifera, — both Koch and Grenier 

 with tomentosa. There are specimens from Frankfort in Mr. Watson's 

 collection. Von Garcke (1863) does not mention it at all for Northern and 

 Central Germany. R. ciliato-petaia of the 2nd edition of Koch's Synopsis 

 from Tyrol and Carniola is the same plant or closely allied. I have it 

 from two places in Savoy. Boreau gives it as very rare in Central France. 

 Four of Deseglise's species, J?, mollissima, Ch'emerii, minuta, and resinosa, 

 are very near to our plant. The same may be said of the Styrian R. 

 resinosa of Sternberg and Reichenbach. Whether R. mollissima of Renter be 

 the same is doubtful, but his R. pomifera apparently includes R. Grenierii 

 of Deseglise, which is certainly far nearer mollissima than the genuine 

 pomifera. 



A plant which grows in hedges at Woodend near Thirsk may perhaps 

 be worth placing as a variety. It has a taller stem than in the type, more 

 glandular leaves, petioles and bracts, sepals copiously setose on the back, 

 fully an inch long, furnished with leafy points, and three out of the five 

 with long toothed pinnse, erecto-patent upon the fruit. When in flower 

 this looks more like tomentosa than mollissima, but in the nature of its 

 fruit and prickles it coincides with the latter. This is referred doubtfully 

 by Deseglise to R. resinosa, but does not quite agree with the sj^ecimens 

 which he sends, which have greener and less hairy leaves, more glandular 

 beneath, and shorter and more glandular sepals. 



R. pomifera, Herm., though almost always given as distinct, is in 

 reality very near to R. mollissima, with which it coincides in the persistence 

 of its sepals and the early date at which the fruit ripens. Its habit of 

 growth is more robust. The leaves are larger, more lengthened out in 

 proportion to the breadth, attaining two inches or more when fully developed, 

 the upper part somewhat dilated and rhomboidal-obovate in outline, the 

 texture hardly so soft, the serrations more open and many times finely 

 toothed. The sepals are an inch long, two usually simple, and the other 

 three considerably pinnated. The fruit is globular or even depressed, 

 measuring in fine specimens three-quarters of an inch across, and is 

 described as dark purplish-red with a glaucous bloom, the peduncles being 



