Roses of Yesterday 463 



other flowers. I know not whether it comes from cen- 

 turies of establishment as a race-symbol, or from some 

 inherent witchery of the plant, but it certainly exists. 

 The variety of Roses known to old American 

 gardens, as to English gardens, was few. The Eng- 

 lish Eglantine was quickly established here in gar- 

 dens and spread to roadsides. The small, ragged, 

 cheerful little Cinnamon Rose, now chiefly seen as a 

 garden stray, is undoubtedly old. This Rose dif- 

 fuses its faint " sinamon smelle " when the petals are 

 dried. Nearly all of the Roses vaguely thought to 

 be one or two hundred years old date only, within 

 our ken, to the earlier years of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. The Seven Sisters Rose, imagined by the 

 owner of many a Southern garden to belong to colo- 

 nial days, is one of the family Rosa multiflora^ intro- 

 duced from Japan to England by Thunberg. Its 

 catalogue name is Greville. I think the Seven Sisters 

 dates back to 1822. The clusters of little double 

 blooms of the Seven S'sters are not among our beau- 

 tiful Roses, but are planted by the house mistress 

 of every Southern home from power of association, 

 because they were loved by her grandmothers, if 

 not by more distant forbears. The crimson Bour- 

 saults are no older. They came from the Swiss Alps 

 and therefore are hardy, but they are fussy things, 

 needing much pruning and pulling out. I recall that 

 they had much longer prickles than the other roses 

 in our garden. The beloved little Banksia Rose came 

 from China in 1807. The Madame Plantier is a hybrid 

 China Rose of much popularity. We have had it 

 about seventy or eighty years. In the lovely garden 



