108 DESCRIPTION OF THE ROSE. 



sion of the former exists, in greater or less degree, in all 

 of them ; while the blood of the Damask Perpetual shows 

 its traces in comparatively few. Many of the group are 

 the results of a union between the Hybrid China roses 

 and some variety of the China or Tea. Others owe their 

 origin to the Hybrid China and the Bourbon, both parents 

 being hybrids of Rosa Indica. Others are offspring of the 

 Hybrid China crossed with the Damask Perpetual ; while 

 many spring from intermarriages within the group itself, 

 Hybrid Perpetual with Hybrid Perpetual. 



By some over-zealous classifiers, this group has been cut 

 up into various subdivisions, as Bourbon Perpetual, Rose 

 de Rosomene, and the like ; a procedure never sufficiently 

 to be deprecated, as tending to produce no results but per- 

 plexity and confusion. Where there can be no definite 

 basis of division, it is well to divide as little as may be ; 

 and it is to be hoped that secession from the heterogeneous 

 commonwealth of the Hybrid Perpetuals will be effect- 

 ually repressed. In regard to roses in general, while a 

 classification founded on evident natural affinities is cer- 

 tainly desirable, yet, in the name of common sense, let us 

 avoid the multiplication of new hybrid groups, founded on 

 flimsy distinctions, and christened with new names, which 

 begin with meaning little, and end with meaning nothing. 



