176 ROSACES. 



14. POT^RIUM (Salad Burnet). Stamens and pistils 

 in separate flowers ; flowers in heads ; calyx 4-cleft, 

 coloured, with. 3 scale-like bracts at the base ; petals ; 

 stamens numerous ; stigma tufted. (Name from the 

 Greek poterion, a drinking-cup, the plant being used in 

 the preparation of Cool-tankard.) 



Sub-order V. KOSHXE. The Rose Group. 



This division contains the genus from which both the 

 Order and Sub-order take their names. Here, also, the 

 fruit furnishes the main characteristic ; it consists of a 

 number of nut-like hairy seeds, enclosed within the 



fleshy tube of the calyx, which is contracted at the top. 

 The Roses are shrubs more or less prickly (not thorny), 

 with pinnate leaves. The number of species is very 

 great, of varieties incalculable, the beauty and fragrance 

 of the flowers having rendered them favourite objects 

 of cultivation from a very early period. The most fra- 

 grant of the British Roses are the common Dog-rose, 

 Rosa canina, and the Scotch Rose, R. spinosissima, the 

 latter being the origin of the numerous varieties of 

 double Scotch Rose. From the petals of R. centifolia 

 and R. Damascena are made Rose-water, and Attar of 

 Roses. It is stated that 100,000 Roses, the produce of 

 10,000 bushes, yield only nine drams of Attar. Some 

 species, as R. rubiginosa, Sweet-brier, are copiously fur- 



