Mr. Woods on the Britiah Species of Rosa. l6l 



sis," the following observations will sufficiently show that it is 

 extremely defective. 'J'hc existence of prickles, or rather of setse, 

 on the fruit or on the peduncle, will not serve for this purpose 

 much better, though these characters have hitherto been much 

 insisted on; — the setae on the peduncle are, I believe, more con- 

 stant than those on the fruit, but llicy are by no means implicitly 

 to be depended on. 



I have no intention, as 1 have no means, to enter in this essay 

 on any examination of foreign Roses ; but in endeavouring to 

 form an arrangement of the British plants, it became necessary 

 to pay some attention to the general appearances, and to the more 

 striking characters of the foreign species. If the whole genus 

 were spread out before a botanist, he would separate them, ac- 

 cording to the habit or general appearance of the plants, into 

 several leading divisions; but in proceeding to distinguish each 

 of these families in description, he will feel the want of some pre- 

 cise language to discriminate certain peculiarities not yet suffi- 

 ciently attended to. Indeed, in analysing the ditferences among 

 any tribe of plants more minutely than has been done before, we 

 shall probably find it necessary either to adopt new terms, or to 

 use with more precision some to which a more lax or more gene- 

 ral interpretation has been affixed. This privilege I have ven- 

 tured to assume in a few instances, where it seemed to me indis- 

 pensable; and particularly with respect to the arms (orwaof Lin- 

 neus) of the Roses, which have hitherto been called by the general 

 term acitlei, except in a i'ew instances, where weak pedicellated 

 glands have supplied their place ; and this latter appearance has 

 been designated by the word hispid. Something of the necessity of 

 more accurate distinctions seems to have been felt by Sir J. E. 

 Smith in his account of the genus Rosa in Rees's Cyclopaedia, by 



VOL. XII. y his 



