DECIDUOUS SHRUBS. 



497 



THE ROSE. Rosa. 



FIG. 165. 



Du Hamel observes that " Nature 

 appears scarcely to have placed any 

 limit between the different species of 

 the rose ; and, if it is already very 

 difficult to define the wild species, 

 which have not yet been modified by 

 culture, it is almost impossible to 

 refer to their original type the numer- 

 ous varieties which culture has made 

 in the flowers of species already so 

 nearly resembling each other." To 

 the ordinary amateur the great num- 

 ber of divisions among cultivated 

 roses into classes and sub-classes, 

 by which professional florists en- 

 deavor to facilitate a knowledge of 

 the different sorts of roses, some- 

 times serves rather to make the 



confusion worse confounded. The distinctions which seem simple 

 enough, and quite necessary to professional florists, who have exam- 

 ples of all sorts constantly before their eyes, is a bewildering mass 

 of floral lore, quite embarrassing to the amateurs for whom one 

 or two dozen of the best varieties of roses will do as well as a 

 thousand. The author of a recent horticultural work, after enumer- 

 ating we know not how many classes of roses, closes the chapter 

 by condensing the results of his experience into a " select list " 

 of upwards of two hundred varieties ! A generosity scarcely ex- 

 ceeded by the nursery catalogues. 



A plan now adopted by many nurserymen, and recommended 

 by Francis Parkman in his excellent treatise entitled "The Book 

 of Roses," is to arrange roses in two great divisions, viz : the first 

 division embracing all roses, whether hardy or tender, which bloom 

 in June, and not afterwards ; the second division embracing all 

 which bloom more than once in a season. 

 32 



