DESCRIPTION OP THE ROSE. 153 



is like a pendulous garland of white, yellow, or rose-colored 

 blossoms, small in size, and countless in number. It is not 

 hardy here, or eVen in England ; but it is one of the few 

 once-blooming roses that are worth training on a green- 

 house rafter. We have found it to succeed in a house 

 without fire, with the protection of straw placed around it 

 in winter. It will then bloom in the spring. 



This rose is a native of China, and was named in com- 

 pliment to Lady Banks. In Italy and the south of France 

 it grows to perfection, climbing with an astonishing vigor, 

 and covering every object within its reach. According to 

 the French writer Deslongchamps, there was in 1842 a 

 Banksia Rose at Toulon, of which the stem was, at its base, 

 two feet and four inches in circumference; while the 

 largest of the six branches measured a foot in girth. Its 

 foliage covered a space of wall seventy-five feet wide, and 

 about eighteen feet high; and it sometimes produced 

 ehoots fifteen feet long in a single year. It flowered in 

 April and May ; from fifty to sixty thousand of its double 

 white blossoms opening at once, with an effect which the 

 writer describes as magical. This remarkable tree was 

 then about thirty-four years old. Deslongchamps also 

 describes another Banksia Rose at Caserta, in the king- 

 dom of Naples, which climbed to the top of a poplar 



