202 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



acquaintance, like the pear or the hawthorn. But as 

 they form the most central t\-pical specimen of the 

 rose tribe which we now possess in England, it is 

 almost necessary to start our description with them, 

 just as in tracing a family pedigree we must set out 

 from the earliest recognisable ancestor, even though 

 he may be far less eminent and less well-known than 

 many of his later descendants. For to a form very 

 much like the potentillas all the rose family trace 

 their descent. The two best known species of poten- 

 tilla are the goose-weed or silver-weed, and the cinque- 

 foil.' Both of them are low creeping herb-like weeds, 

 with simple bright yellow blossoms about the size of 

 a strawberry flower, having each five golden petals, 

 and bearing a number of small Av\- brown seeds on a 

 long green stalk. At first sight a casual observer 

 would hardly take them for roses at all, but a closer 

 view would show that they resemble in all essential 

 particulars an old-fashioned single yellow rose in 

 miniature. From some such small creeping plants as 

 these all the roses are probably descended. Observe, 

 I do not say that they are the direct offspring of the 

 potentillas, but merelj- that the\- are the offspring of 

 some very similar simple form. \\'e ourselves do not 

 derive our origin from the Icelanders ; but the Ice- 



' See fig. 43. 



