THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



ROSA. 825 



growing plant, but requires some support to 

 get it off the ground at first. We train it up 

 stout Oak branches, and get it a few feet high, 

 then let it ramble at will. There are double 

 forms of it offered by nurserymen which are 

 an improvement on the type, being of sturdier 

 habit, and lasting longer in flower. For cover- 

 ing roots, banks, mounds, pillars, &c., these are 

 excellent, forming at last huge tangled masses 

 of the greatest beauty and elegance in the 

 wild garden. The flowers are white or pale 

 pink. 



R. RuBiGiNOSA [Sweetbriar). — Perhaps as 

 pretty as any Wild Rose in flower, fruit, and 

 delightful fragrance. It is a native Rose, but 

 also distributed through much of Europe and 

 Asia, and, although often planted, is scarcely 

 ever made enough of in country places. It is 

 most useful for forming fences with Quick or 

 even by itself on good banks, as it is so 

 spiny that cattle, which do so much harm 

 to almost every other kind of hedge plant, do 

 not touch this, so that it swings careless in the 

 field where they are. The plant ought to be 

 grown by the thousand, and anybody with a 

 few bushes of it can save the seed for this pur- 

 pose. It is a delightful plant from the time its 

 buds burst in early spring until the birds have 

 eaten the brilliant berries in winter. There 

 are some garden kinds with double and semi- 

 double flowers, but none are sweeter than the 

 old kind. 



R. RUBRIFOLIA {Red-leaved Rose) should 

 have a place for its lovely tinted leaves and 

 shoots : it has a rambling or climbing habit, 

 but also grows into a large self-supporting 

 bush or spreads nicely when pegged down. 

 The flowers are red and small, the fruits 

 purplish-red with soft flesh. Its chief charm, 

 however, is in the colour of shoots and leaves. 

 The young, strong shoots are purple-red over- 

 laid with a pale graybloom, whilst the leaves are 

 of a peculiar glaucous colour brightly tinged 

 with red. North America. Syn. R. ferniginea. 



R. RUGOSA {Rainanas Rose). — A strong 

 grower in any soil, it is one of the best, making 

 a handsome bush when isolated, but large 

 gardens should have great groups of it, and in 

 leaf, flower, and fruit it is beautiful ; it is a 

 long and persistent bloomer, and reaches the 

 zenith of its beauty when the secondary flowers 

 come with the glowing orange and red fruits 

 that have succeeded the first flowers. Then a 

 second crop of ripe fruit appears late in autumn, 

 when the leaves turn yellow, showing the Rose 

 in another pretty aspect. It makes a good 

 hedge, and where pretty dividing lines are 

 wanted it is one of the best for the purpose. 

 There are purple, pink, and white forms, this 

 last being lovely, and quite the best single 

 white Rose of the non-climbers. They are 

 free enough to plant for covert. An interest- 

 ing form of the typical rtigosa alba is pyro- 

 carpa, which bears large clusters of pear- 

 shaped orange fruits. The new garden forms 

 of R. riigosa are dealt with under a separate 

 heading. I'iosa Regeliaua and R. kamtschatica 

 are forms of this species. Japan. 



R. SERICEA. — This is one of the early- 

 flowering kinds, often in bloom by the end of 

 May. It is a very pretty Rose both in flower 

 and in leaf, and can be told from all other 

 Roses by its shapely white flowers with four 

 petals which are arranged in the shape of a 

 Maltese cross, five being, of course, the 

 normal number in this family. The leaflets 

 are small and numerous, not unlike those of 

 the Scotch Rose, and in one variety the young 

 stems are quite red. North India. There is a 

 strange form of this Rose from Yunnan, known 

 as pteracantha, or the Great Spined Rose. 

 It is remarkable for its stout ruddy stems, set 

 throughout their entire length with broad wing- 

 like spines, their effect unlike anything hitherto 

 seen in the Rose family. 



R. SETIGERA [the Prairie Rose). — There is 

 no doubt, I think, that of the species native 

 of North America this is the best and most 

 useful in English gardens. It is a climbing 

 plant of vigorous growth, the leaflets, of which 

 there are three to each leaf, being large for a 

 Rose. It blooms in July and August, and is 

 thus one of the latest of all the wild Roses to 

 flower. The flowers are large and showy, and 

 of a deep rose, but without fragrance. This 

 Rose is seen best planted in a large mass, and, 

 given a few rough roots or posts to climb over, 

 it soon makes a large impenetrable thicket. 

 The fruits are small as compared with other 

 wild Roses. 



R. spiNOSissiMA (Burnet Rose). — A pretty 

 native Wild Rose, which will grow and flourish 

 in the lightest and hottest ot soils, where many 



Sweetbriar. Kosa spinosissima. 



Roses fail. It is the parent of the Scotch 

 Roses, some of which are so very pretty in like 

 soils ; the creamy white flowers of the wild 

 plant are pretty and fragrant. 



R. XANTHIXA. — A charming plant for the 



