180 Mr. Woods on the British Species of Rosa. 



i. Peduncle setose; fruit somewhat ampulliform, dark. Found 

 by Mr. Robertson near Newcastle. I have never seen any 

 specimen : it may perhaps be a dark-fruited variety of 

 R. rubella. 

 R. spinosissima may be easily distinguished from R. imoluta by its 

 simple serratures. The only other British plant with which it could 

 be confounded is R. rubella ; but in R. spinosissima the aculei are 

 numerous, strong, and expanded at the base, and gradually di- 

 minish into setoe, those of an intermediate size being as nume- 

 rous as those which are larger or smaller. In R. rubella the 

 prickles are few, very slender, little expanded at the base, and 

 Dearly of a size; while the setse are much more numerous and 

 crowded than in R. spinosissima : the setee of the peduncle also 

 in R. rubella are long and slender; whereas the peduncle of 

 R. spiiwsissima is either naked as in «, or with the glands on short 

 peduncles as in (2, or with arms, which are rather aculei than setae, 

 as in y. But perhaps the existence of such variations in this 

 species ought to induce us to place but little dependence on this 

 character. Both the colour and shape of the fruit of R. spinosis- 

 sima vary considerably ; but it is probably never either so red or 

 so long as in R. rubella. 



R. jnyriacantha, Lam. et Dec. Fl. Fr. iv. 459, & vi. 533, ap- 

 pears to be allied to R. spinosissima ; but the footstalk and the 

 under surface of the leaves are covered with glands. Lamarck 

 and Decandolle also mention that there is a difference in the ser- 

 ratures of the leaves and in the leaves of the calyx, but they do 

 not point out in what it consists. Desvaux, Joi/nifl/ de Botan. ii. 

 118, says the serratures of R. myriacnntha are compound ; but in 

 a specimen of this species from Decandolle, in the Herbarium of 

 Mr. D. Turner, they are sinjple. 



I am by no means confident that the figure in the Fl. Danica, 

 I. 398, is intended for this plant : it differs in the aculei, which 



are 



