154 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



refers, of course, to the canker-rose. According to 

 legend, the Crown of Thorns was made from the 

 briers of this variety of rose. 



VARIEGATED ROSE (Rosa versicolor) of 

 Shakespeare's plays is the curious bush which pro- 

 duces at the same time red roses, white roses, and 

 roses of red mottled with white and of white mottled 

 with red. The growth of the tree is stiff and erect 

 and the flowers have a sweet scent. The rose is often 

 called the "York and Lancaster." Parkinson says: 



"This Rose in the form and order of the growing 

 is nearest unto the ordinary Damask Rose both for 

 stem, branch, leaf and flower, the difference con- 

 sisting in this that the flower (being of the same 

 largeness and doubleness as the Damask Rose) hath 

 the one half of it sometimes of a pale whitish color 

 and the other half of a paler damask color than the 

 ordinary. This happeneth so many times, and some- 

 times also the flower hath divers stripes and marks 

 on it, one leaf white, or striped with white, and the 

 other half blush, or striped with blush, sometimes 

 all striped, or spotted over, and at other times little 

 or no stripes, or marks, at all, as Nature listeth to 

 play with varieties in this as in other flowers. Yet 

 this I have observed, that the longer it abideth blown 

 open to the sun, the paler and the fewer stripes, 



