General Notices. 231 



management of the plants, or the cHmate of Cincinnati is 

 particularly uncongenial to this variety. Everywhere else in 

 the country, the seedling is all we have ever claimed for it. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



On the Culture of Tall or Climbing Roses. — If we wish to convey correct 

 ideas of plants, we must adhere to botanical descriptions, and not to terms 

 used in common conversation ; for we find the term tree used in speaking of 

 ligneous, herbaceous, and even annual plants. We have tree-paeony, tree- 

 violet, and even tree-mignonette: no wonder, then, that we should have 

 tree -roses. 



The standard rose is generally termed a tree-rose ; and, before we go 

 further with the subject, it may be necessary to state, that " when the 

 branches are perennial, and supported upon a trunk, a tree is said to be 

 formed." 



If I recollect rightly, Loudon has somewhere set the boundary mark for a 

 tree at from " four to six inches diameter, with a single bole or stem." 

 Now there are rose-plants here with stems six inches in diameter ; still 

 these dimensions do not constitute them rose-trees ; for the common laurel 

 will attain a diameter of six feet, and form an enormous head, yet the nor- 

 mal form of the laurel, as well as that of the rose, is decidedly a shrub ; and 

 accordingly, in botanical works, we find them constantly so named. The 

 largest rose-plant to be met with, scarcely amounts to the character of a 

 small tree, {arbusculus,) by any reasonable stretch of courtesy. But I am 

 reminded to get rose-plants with the appearance at least, and with the size 

 of head of a tree (arbor) aye, even of such a tree as the princely cedar, so 

 graphically portrayed by Ezekiel in his vision of the fall of the kings of 

 Egypt and Assyria; and if the fall of such a tree be terrible to behold, 

 surely its standing clad with roses, would be majestic and goodly fair to 

 see. 



The rose is unquestionably the most popular flower known, and its geo- 

 graphical range embraces, according to Loudon, (Arb. Brit.) Europe, and 

 the temperate regions of Asia, Africa, and America : in all these, it is said 

 to be found wild, but not in Australia. Now I have it from an eye-witness, 

 that, in the wilds of Australia, the rose is seen in abundance, in the form of 

 sweet-briar ; it seems, therefore, to be as universally distributed as it is uni- 

 versally admired. From the language of holy writ, it is clear that the rose 

 was held in high esteem in the days of King Solomon ; for, if we compare 

 the sentence, "I am the rose of Sharon," as rendered by King James's 

 translators, with the same sentence in the Douay version of the Bible, " I 



