150 REMARKS ON THE INDIGENOUS ROSES OF AMERICA. 



REMARKS ON THE INDIGENOUS ROSES OF 

 AMERICA, &c. 



BY AN ARDENT ADMIKEU. 



In a recent number of this Magazine, I observed some observations 

 upon an American Rose, discovered by a female, and named the 

 Maanga Rose. Having seen in an American publication, some extended 

 remarks on the national (indigenous) roses of that portion of the world, 

 I have transcribed a few short particulars of some of the most beau- 

 tiful :— 



" North America : there, in the glaciers of the most northerly pro- 

 vinces, grows the Rosa blanda, which unfolds its bright pink corolla, 

 always solitary on the stem, immediately on the melting of the snows. 

 This shrub is peculiar to the frozen deserts between 70° and 75 N. 

 latitude. Within the polar circle, on the shores of the Hudson, is 

 found the Rosa rapa, or Hudsoniana, covered during spring with 

 clusters of double flowers of a pale colour. Newfoundland and Labra- 

 dor possess, in addition to the two species above named, the Rosa fraxi- 

 nifolia, or ash-leaved rose, a small red blossom with heart-shaped petals ; 

 the Rosa nitida, the small cup-shaped, deep red flowers and fruit of 

 which abound under the stunted shrubs dispersed over the coasts. The 

 Esquimaux are fond of decorating their hair, and the seal-skins and 

 skins of rein-deer in which they are clothed, with these beautiful blos- 

 soms. 



" The United States, and adjacent Indian settlements, possess a great 

 variety of roses, of which a few striking species may be enumerated. 

 In the marshes of Carolina grows the Rosa lucida, the bright clusters 

 of which rise above the reeds and rushes ; beside the waves of the 

 Missouri, the Rosa Woodsii ; and in the adjoining marshes, the Rosa 

 Carolina, and Rosa Evratina, whose double flowers of a pale pink, 

 perish if transplanted to garden ground from the marshy banks of the 

 rivulets of Virginia, of which the shrub is a native. 



" Quitting the borders of streams and marshy savannahs, there is in 

 the forests and stony districts the Rosa diffusa, of which the pink 

 flowers blossom in pairs early in the summer. On the rising grounds 

 of Pennsylvania, grows the Rosa parviflora, a diminutive shrub, of 

 which the small, half-blown, elegant double flowers, slightly tinged 

 with the most delicate pink, constitute one of the most beautiful species 

 of North America, but extremely difficult of culture and propagation. 

 On the outskirts of the Pennsylvanian forests, s>rows the Rosa stricta, 

 with flowers of a pale red ; the Rosa rubifolia, flowers small, pale red, 

 and flowering in clusters of three ; and, in South Carolina, the Rosa 

 setigera, the petals of whose red blossoms are shaped like a reversed 

 heart. The Creoles of Georgia adorn their hair with the large white 

 blossoms 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, mar 

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



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