228 THE AYRSHIKE ROSE. 



dens at Loudon, lias informed me that he gave a plant of the Rose 

 to his friend Mr. Charles Dalrymple of Orangefield, near Ayr, from 

 whose garden it was introduced into tlie nurseries in his neighbour- 

 hood, as well as at Glasgow; it was at first called the Orangefield 

 Rose, but subsequently received the more general appellation by 

 which it is now known. It has been considered by some as a native 

 wild plant of Ayrshire, but I believe there is little doubt, that it was 

 first observed in the gardens of that county, where possibly the ori- 

 ginal plants, or at least some of their earliest offspring, are still to be 

 seen. Mr. Woods did not consider it as indigenous in Britain, since 

 in his Synopsis of the British Roses, communicated to the Linnean 

 Society in 1S16, and subsequently published in their Transactions, 

 he has not even mentioned it. 



From Scotland, it reached the nurseries round London, but was 

 not noticed by any of «ur periodical works on plants till 1819, when 

 Dr. Sims published an account of it in the Botanical Magazine. 

 His description was made from specimens of plants which cover a 

 building, in the garden of the late Sir Joseph Banks, at Spring 

 Grove; these came from the nursery of Mr. Ronalds, at Brentford, 

 and were planted in February, 181 1. 



The Ayrshire Rose has slender branches, which grow rapidly 

 in one season to a very great extent (thirty feet and upwards), 

 but they are so weak as absolutely to require support; the older 

 branches are greenish brown, with a few small pale falcate aculei 

 growing on them ; the younger branches are green, with a tinge 

 of purplish red, and armed with falcate red aculei; those branches 

 which grow to any extent are so slender and flexible, as to hang 

 down almost perpendicularly from the last point to which they are 

 nailed or tied. The smaller side branches are very numei-ous, and 

 are abundantly covered with leaves, so as to form a thick close mass; 

 the plant rarely throws up strong surculi, or root shoots. The leaves 

 are deciduous ; the stipulae long and narrow, red in the centre, edged 

 with glands, but otherwise smooth ; the petioli have a few uncinate 

 aculei and some small glands scattered over them ; the foliola are 

 either five or seven in number, the lower pair being much the 

 smallest, they are flat and smooth, shining on both sides, but paler 

 though without glaucousness underneath, ovate, pointed, and simply 

 serrated; the edges, and particularly those of the vigorous leaves, 

 being sometimes tinged with red. The flowers are produced abun- 

 dantly from the beginning to near the end of July ; they rarely grow 

 singly, but are often threes, and on strong shoots the cymes contain 

 many flowers, from ten to twenty or more ; the bracteaj are tinged with 



