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XIV. A Si/iiopsis of the British Species of Rosa. By Joseph 



Woods, Esq. F.L.S. 



Bead April \6 and June 4, 1816. 



The beauty of the Rose is so trite a theme, that it would be al- 

 most impossible to praise it in any other terms than have already 

 been used for the same subject: — but beautiful as it is, the genus 

 has long been involved in confusion and obscurity. Born with 

 the same senses, the same tastes as other men, the botanist will 

 feel its beauties even more strongly than they do, in proportion as 

 those tastes and senses have been more exercised towards simi- 

 lar objects. But the difficulties attending the investigation of 

 these plants are at least equal to the charms of their appearance 

 and fragrance: even their commonness has perhaps contributed 

 to our ignorance of them. Educated with Roses always before 

 our eyes, it is long ere we learn to consider them as objects of 

 science; and the excitement of novelty is lost while we are yet 

 incapable of accurate examination. For my own part, if I had 

 not been stimulated by the strikingly different appearance of the 

 genus in the hedges of Westmoreland from that which it assumes 

 in the southern counties, I should probably never have exposed 

 my insufficiency in this attempt to discriminate the species: but 

 the almost uniformly villous leaves and the colour of the flowers, 

 generally either a white (sometimes almost pure, sometimes with 

 a spot or two of full red), or else a much deeper red than in any 

 of the Roses in the neighbourhood of London, attracted my atten- 

 tion. 



