THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 



The rose at first is thought to have been of five The first 

 leaves, as it yet groweth wild among us, but in rose 

 the most luxuriant, the calicular leaves do still 

 maintain that number. But nothing is more 

 admired than the five brethren of the rose, and 

 the strange disposure of the appendices or 

 beards, in the calicular leaves thereof, which in 

 despair of resolution is tolerably salved from 

 this contrivance, best ordered and suited for 

 the free closure of them before explication. For 

 those two which are smooth, and of no beard, 

 are contrived to lie undermost, as without pro- 

 minent parts, and fit to be smoothly covered; 

 the other two which are beset with beards on 

 either side, stand outward and uncovered, but 

 the fifth or half-bearded leaf is covered on the 

 bare side, but on the open side stands free, and 

 bearded like the other. 



Besides, a large number of leaves have five 

 divisions, and may be circumscribed by a pen- 

 tagon or figure of five angles, made by right 

 lines from the extremity of their leaves, as in 

 maple, vine, fig-tree; but five-leaved flowers 

 are commonly disposed circularly about the 

 stylus, according to the higher geometry of 

 nature, dividing a circle by five radii, which 

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