446 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
ON THE DERIVATION OF SOME RECENT VARIETIES 
OF ROSES. 
By ArtHur Wiut1amM Paut, Waltham Cross, Herts. 
On the occasion of the last Conference on Hybridisation held by this 
Society in 1899, it was remarked at the opening of one of the sessions 
that the great value of these meetings is that they connect together the 
scientific aspect with the practical. It is my desire in the present paper 
to deal more particularly with the latter, or practical aspect, as regards the 
derivation of some of the most striking and remarkable roses for garden 
ornamentation that have appeared in recent years, and in so doing I 
propose to select for consideration those varieties that exhibit especially 
distinct traits of colouring, form of flower, habit of growth, and flori- 
ferousness, in preference to those remarkable only for the size and 
regularity of their blooms. 
I think it will be conceded that in no other flower have we so many 
garden varieties as in the rose, and no other flower has enjoyed for so long 
a time an equal degree of popularity and extended cultivation both in this 
country and other lands. The rich materials which Nature has provided 
in a large number of wild species, and their widely differing characteristics 
and forms of beauty, have placed within the reach of hybridisers and 
crossbreeders opportunities for the variation and improvement of old 
forms and the evolution of new ones which I believe exist in no other 
single genus of ornamental plants, whilst the appreciation on the part of 
lovers of gardens of the results of successful labours in this field have 
proved a worthy recompense for the expenditure of time and skill involved 
therein, and a cheering incentive to fresh efforts. 
From a very early period in the history of raising roses from seed, the 
wide variation in the character of the seedlings has been remarked. A 
French writer, seventy years ago (Boitard “ Manuel de Roses,” 1836, quoted 
in “ The Rose Garden,” 10th edition, p. 115), calls attention to this fact, 
and cites in illustration the experience of more than one well-known 
raiser of that time who constantly obtained plants of LR. spinosissima 
among seedlings raised from carefully selected seed of Ff. indica, and also 
the presence of plants of R. ferox among seedlings of R. rubiginosa. My ~ 
father, the late Mr.’ William Paul, always preferred to employ, when 
possible, plants on their own roots for the purposes of crossing and seed- 
bearing, so as to avoid the possible influence of a foreign stock on the 
progeny. 
Looking back upon the rose as a garden flower one hundred years 
ago, we gather from the literature of that period that the number of garden 
varieties, apart from the botanical species, was comparatively limited, and 
their origin for the most part was a matter of speculation ; but from that 
period onwards they have increased with marvellous rapidity, and the 
