ROSACEA. 237 
been used to make a conserve with sugar, and is an article included in the Phar- 
macopeia. The so-called fruit is truly the enlarged persistent calyx enclosing the 
real fruits, which are numerous small achenia, clothed, as well as the inside of the 
calyx, with silky hairs. In preparing them for officinal use, the hairs and achenia 
are to be carefully removed, and the fleshy calyx beaten to a pulp, to which, 
gradually, thrice their own weight of white sugar is to be added. The employ- 
ment of heat in the preparation of this conserve is directed in the Pharmacopeia ; 
but it is better omitted. The pulp consists chiefly of malic and citric acids, in 
combination mostly with some salts, tannin, resins, a small quantity of volatile and 
fixed oils, woody fibre, and a large quantity of sugar. The action on the stomach is 
slightly refrigerant and aperient, its sweetness recommending it to children, and as 
a vehicle for other medicines. It is apt to candy or concrete by keeping. The fresh 
hips, freed from the fruit and hairs, bruised, and having a little sugar added, yield, 
by having hot water poured on them, a cooling mildly-astringent drink, which would 
be grateful to the poor suffering from autumnal fevers. In former times, when garden 
fruit was scarce, these hips were esteemed for dessert. Gerarde assures us that the 
hips of the rose “maketh the most pleasante meats and banqueting dishes, and tarts 
and such-like, the making whereof” he commits to the “cunning cooke and teethe to 
eate them in the riche man’s mouth.” The Germans still use them as an ordinary 
preserve ; and this, as well as a preserve of the blossom, is employed in our own village 
confectionary. The flowers still form an article of luxury among the Chinese ; and Sir 
John Davis, in describing a feast given to him at Shanghae, mentions a ragoit of the 
flowers of the common China Rose dressed whole, which celestial and ambrosial dish 
he, however, declares to have been a mixture of salt, sour and other indescribable 
flavours, such as forbade a repetition ; being therein of a different opinion from Master 
Gerarde, who affirms that they are greatly to be desired as a culinary vegetable, “as 
well for their virtues and goodness in taste, as also for their beautiful colour.” Gerarde 
hints at “divers other pretty things made of roses and sugar, which are impertinent 
unto our historie.” 
Pliny, Galen, and others have dwelt much on the virtues of the tufty spongioles 
which we often find growing on the branches of wild Roses, and which children call 
“ Robin’s pincushions.” All sorts of medicinal qualities have been attributed to them, 
and they were supposed to be parts of the Rose itself ; but we know now that they are 
excrescences produced by the insect powers of the Cynips Rose, a little insect which 
deposits its eggs in the miniature bud, and thus arrests its development. 
Of the Roses we have many varieties which are favourites in the garden. R. Indica, 
the China Rose, is perhaps the most beautiful, and is found wild about Canton, in China. 
Tt blossoms six or eight times a year, and its colour varies from a delicate blush to a 
deep crimson. There is a hybrid variety between this species and the R. odorata, which 
is well known in gardens as the tea-scented China Rose. The varieties of this pretty 
Rose grow abundantly in France in the open air ; they do not well bear the climate of 
England. The Austrian Rose—Rosa lutea—is known by its foliage existing only at 
the extremity of its branches; prickles under the stipules, and leaflets hollow. The 
- most brilliant yellow roses are produced from this species: they require a moist and 
dry pure air, and do well without pruning. The Rose, as among Eastern nations, has 
ever been a favourite in France. Some of the French deeds or “acts” of the Middle 
Ages contain clauses stipulating for certain “rentes” of Roses. Such rents, too, have 
been paid in our own country. Lord Brougham still holds the castle of High Head in 
capite of the Queen “ by the service of a red Rose rendered annually at Carlisle.” In 
