ROSACEA. 263 
numerous, enclosed in the fleshy or cartilaginous calyx-tube, bony, 
hairy at the side opposite the style. 
Shrubs, often prickly. Leaves pinnate, with few pairs of pinne : 
stipules adnate to the petiole. Flowers large, terminal, solitary or 
several in a simple corymbose or umbellate cyme.* 
The name of this well-known genus of plants is one which is adopted into most 
modern languages of Europe. It evidently comes from the Greek word pocoy (rodon), 
red ; and the rose of the ancients was undoubtedly one of a deep crimson colour, 
which probably suggested the fable of its springing from the blood of Adonis. 
Section I.—SPINOSISSIM &. 
Rather low bushes, plentifully stoloniferous, with erect or slightly 
arching stems, with the branches mostly short; shoots with the 
prickles very numerous, crowded, unequal, passing gradually into 
aciculi, and having a greater or less number of gland-tipped sete. 
Leaves glabrous or slightly hairy, with few or no glands. Styles 
not united. Fruit mostly subglobose, with truly persistent sepals. 
SPECIES 1I—ROSA SPINOSISSIMA. Linn. 
Prats CCCCLXI. 
Baker, in Nat. 1864, p. 15. 
Prickles much crowded, slender, nearly straight, spreading, very 
unequal, passing gradually into aciculi and gland-tipped sete. 
Leaflets + roundish or oval, obtuse, simply and equally serrated, 
glabrous and without glands on both sides. Pedicels solitary and 
without bracts, mostly glabrous. Fruit erect, subglobose, rarely 
ovoid, glabrous or rarely prickly at base, purplish-black when mature, 
* In this difficult genus I have followed Mr. J. G. Baker in his valuable papers 
on the Roses of the North of England, publishing in the “ Naturalist,” of which, how- 
ever, the whole series is not yet in print ; but Mr. Baker has kindly furnished me 
with his manuscripts on the subject. I have followed his arrangement, not having 
paid that special attention to the genus which he has bestowed upon it; though, had 
I felt justified in following my own bias, I incline towards Mr. Bentham’s views of the 
genus. It seems to me that we have not more than five or six species or super-species 
of British Roses ; but combination of sub-species into super-species can be safely ven- 
tured upon only by those intimately acquainted with all the minute differences which 
distinguish the forms which are to be combined. . 
For reasons similar to those given in the note on the genus Rubus, it has been 
considered advisable to give plates of the more conspicuous forms only. 
+ The shape of the leaflets is described from the terminal one throughout the 
whole of the genus Rosa. 
