708 ROSA. ("CLASS XII. ORDER III. 



"Along tbe gunny bank or watery mead, 

 Ten thousand stalks tbe various blossoms spread : 

 Peaceful and lonely in their native soil, 

 They neither know to spin nor care to toil ; 

 Yet with confess'd magnificence deride, 

 Our vile attire and impotence of pride. 

 The Cowslip smiles in brighter yellow dress'd, 

 Than that which veils tbe nubile virgin's breast. 

 A fairer red stands blushing in tbe Rose, 

 Than that which in tbe bridegroom's vestment flows." 



Pryor. 



8. R. villo'sa, Linn. (Fig. 804.) Villout Rose. Root shoots erect, 

 coloured ; prickles nearly straight, uniform ; leaflets ovate, downy, 

 glandulous, doubly serrated ; fruit orate, drooping, setose, or smooth ; 

 calyx segments scarcely pinnated. 



English Flora, vol. ii. p. 382. Hooker, British Flora, ed. 3. vol. i. 

 p. 232. R. mollis, Linn. English Botany, t. 2459. Lindley, Sy- 

 nopsis, p. 100. R. mollissima, Willd. 



Root with creeping suckers. Shrub from six to eight feet high, 

 with erect not arched shoots, much branched in an irregular manner, 

 the bark varying in colour from grey to purple, often marked in 

 coloured patches. Prickles few, scattered, straight, slender, or slightly 

 curved, mostly in pairs beneath the leaf, or scattered singly on the 

 stem, without any seta amongst them. Leaves mostly numerous, the 

 common footstalk downy and glandulose, with a few very slender pale 

 prickles on the under side. Leaflets five to seven, ovate or elliptic, 

 obtuse, or acute at the point, downy, especially beneath, and more or 

 less scattered over with glands, often grey with down paler beneath, 

 the margins, with spreading mostly regular serratures, the secondary 

 ones very small, fringed with glands. Stipules thin, pale, concave, 

 downy and glandular, the points spreading. Flowers from one to 

 three or four, sometimes very numerous, the peduncles short, and as 

 well as the calyx tube greyish green, sometimes purplish, more or less 

 thickly clothed with bristles, rarely naked, the calyx segments downy, 

 glandulous, and bristly at the base, sometimes simple, pinnated, bat 

 rarely leafy. Petals obcordate, concave, rather longer than the calyx 

 segments, of a deep pink colour, sometimes white, and at others white, 

 with pink patches. Disk fleshy. Styles with prominent downy 

 stigmas. Fruit elliptical, or globose, of a purplish red or crimson 

 colour, with a grey bloom upon it, bristly, and mostly pendulous, pulpy 

 when ripe. 



Habitat. North of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; not 

 uncommon. 



Shrub; flowering in June and July. 



Many of the varieties of this plant are so nearly allied to R. tomen- 

 tosa, that it is difficult to know to which species they belong; and we 

 are not sure if it would not be better to unite them together, as is done 



