ON THE DOUBLE YELLOW ROSE. 251 



One of the prettiest of the new roses, of 1838 is the double yellow, 

 or rather cream-colour sweet briar. There are many other 

 flowering shrubs well deserving of notice, which I shall notice in 

 subsequent papers. 



August, 20th 1839. Clekicus. 



ARTICLE II. 

 ON THE DOUBLE YELLOW ROSE.— (Rosa sulphurba.) 



BY ROSA. 



On this most beautiful Rose Mr. Rivers, in his Rose Amateur's 

 guide remarks, " The origin of this very old and beautiful rose, 

 like that of the moss rose seems lost in obscurity. In the botan- 

 ical catalogues, it is made a species, said to be a native of the 

 Levant, and introduced into this Country in 1629, and never to 

 have been seen in a wild state bearing single flowers. It is pass- 

 ing strange, that this double rose should have been always con- 

 sidered a species. Nature has never yet given us a double flowering 

 species to raise single flowering varieties from; but exactly the 

 reverse. We are compelled, therefore, to consider the parent of 

 this rose to be a species bearing single flowers. If this single 

 flowering species was a native of the Levant, our botanists, ere 

 now, would have discovered its habitats ; I cannot help, therefore, 

 suggesting, that to the gardens of the east of Europe we must look 

 for the origin of this rose, and to the Single Yellow Austrian Briar 

 (Rosa lutea), as its parent : though that, in a state of nature, seldom 

 if ever bears seed, yet, as I have proved, it will, if its flowers are 

 fertilised. I do not suppose that the gardeners of the East knew 

 of this, now common, operation; but it probably was done by some 

 accidental juxta-position, and thus, by mere chance, one of the 

 most remarkable and beautiful of roses was originated. From its 

 foliage having acquired a glaucous pubescence, and its shoots a 

 greenish yellow tinge, in those respects much unlike the Austrian 

 Briar, I have sometimes been inclined to impute its origin to that 

 rose, fertilised with a double or semi-double variety of the Damask 

 Rose, for that is also an eastern plant. 



As yet, we have but two roses in this division ; the Double Yel- 

 low, or" Yellow Provence," with large globular and very double 

 bright yellow flowers^ and the Pompone Jaune, or dwarf Double 

 Yellow, both successively shy of producing full-blown flowers, 



