10 ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE HISTORY OF THE ROSE. 



their hair with the large "white hlossoms of the Rosa laevigata, a 

 climbing plant, whose long tendrils are found interlaced among the 

 most majestic forest trees. 



" The last rose adorning the Flora of America is the Rosa Mon- 

 tezuma; ; sweet scented, of a pale pink, solitary, and thornless. 

 This shrub abounds on the most elevated heights of Cerro Ventoso, 

 near San Pedro, in Mexico, where it was discovered by Messieurs 

 Humboldt and Bonpland. The town of San Pedro is situated in 

 19° of latitude; in direct refutation of those botanists who pretend 

 that roses are not to be found under 20°. But the Montezuma is not 

 the only Mexican rose. History attests that roses were abundant in 

 the province at the Spanish conquest ; witness the apostrophe of the 

 Emperor Guatimozin to his favourite minister, when extended on 

 beds of burning coal, intended by the conquerors to torture them 

 into the discovery of their hidden treasures. 



" But though the species already cited are the only ones we are at 

 present authorized to attribute to America, it is probable that more 

 will be discovered; the greatest variety of roses being assigned by 

 botanists to such countries as have been most minutely herborized. 

 The insufficiency of our researches is probably the only cause that 

 so large a portion of the American continent is held to be_unproduc- 

 tive of roses. It seems unlikely, indeed, that France should possess 

 twenty-four species of native roses, and the whole continent of North 

 and South America only fourteen ; nor is it to be credited that the 

 rose-tree ceases to nourish within the 20° of latitude, when we 

 remember that we are indebted to Mr. Salt for the discovery of a 

 strongly characterized species in Abyssinia, at 10° of latitude. 



"It is a curious fact, that all the roses of America, with the 

 exception of the Montezuma and stricta, might be classed under the 

 same species as the European cinnamon-rose. 



" Asia has to boast a greater variety of species of the rose than the 

 rest of the earth united ; thirty-nine, that admit of accurate definition, 

 having been already established. Of these, the vast empire of 

 China, where both agriculture and horticulture are arts in high esti- 

 mation, has a claim to fifteen. 



" First, the Rosa semperflorens, the leaves of which have some- 

 times three leaflets, sometimes only one ; whose flowers are scentless, 

 of a pale dull pink, producing a pleasing effect when half-blown. 

 The Romsi?iensis, confounded by some botanists with the preceding, 



