IGl 



CHAPTER XIV. 



VARIETIES AND HABITS. 



" I love wel sweetie Ro.ses rede.' 



— Chaucer. 



The great majority of my readers would skip this 

 chapter of my book if I entered too fully into the 

 botanical 'history of the Rose or discussed at length 

 all the species of the genus ROSA. In the ** Rosarum 

 Monographia " no less than seventy-eight species are 

 described, besides others that are doubtful. Botanists, 

 however, do not stop here ; some ihave produced a far 

 greater list, and even to-day are adding trouble for 

 the student. As a boy I used to rejoice in the fact 

 that certain books of Euclid had been lost, and had 

 even the courage to confide my opinions to the mathe- 

 matical master, Who, needless to say, did not agree. 

 " Every cobbler to his last," as the saying is; he was 

 a mathematician, I was not; neither did I joy in the 

 books that Euclid had left behind to harrass sdhool- 

 boys. It is much the same with the Rose. The 

 average grower does not care a brass button how 

 many species are recorded, and, since botanists cannot 

 agree, w^hat does it matter? M. Boitard, a French 

 author, has maintained that there are only three 

 species: i, R. simplicifolia; 2, R. lutea; 3, R. muta- 

 bilis. He divides these into races and varieties, and 

 brings most of the cultivated varieties under the third 

 species (R. mutabilis). I would like to go further, and 

 say, with the book of Genesis, " In the beginning," 

 etc., and thus bring " species " down to the one or 

 two common parents. 



It is the law of nature that alterations and varia- 

 tions shall take place, and to the end of the world the 



