The Fascination of Flowers [ 307 



The small solitary bees are persistent callers; so are bumblebees 

 and honeybees, though they seem to prefer different varieties of the 

 iris. 



ROSES THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR FLOWERS 



It has been said that children see so many roses that they 

 take them for granted. I doubt that this is really their attitude, 

 as so many of them choose roses when asked to write about their 

 favorite nature subject. Certainly the rose appears to be the 

 world's most popular flower. It is grown wherever gardening 

 is practiced, in all temperate climates and in some tropical regions 

 as well. It is also believed to be the oldest of cultivated flowers. 



Though no flower is more readily identified, many people are 

 perplexed by the question, "What 1*5 a rose?" Looking for an 

 answer, we may be inclined to find more sense than nonsense 

 in Gertrude Stein's famous statement, "A rose is a rose is a 

 rose"; for the rose has endless varieties and it is neither an ordinary 

 seed plant nor a tree. There are single blooms, having only one 

 row of showy petals, and double blooms with their rows of petals 

 arranged in regular sequence or in loose informal patterns. 



Five Thousand Varieties of Roses: The roses' bright colors cover 

 a wide range from white, through delicate pink, yellow to rich 

 tones of red. As to size, they vary from dime-small miniatures to 

 exhibition blooms seven inches and more across. Believe it or 

 not, in the United States alone there are more than five thousand 

 varieties, each differing in some detail. The plant is a woody 

 shrub which may stand erect or climb on supports. It has an 

 extensive root system that sometimes goes as deep as twenty feet 

 into the ground. 



Roses and Strawberries Are Relatives: Aside from the innumer- 

 able kinds of roses produced in gardens, there is the simple but 

 very beautiful wild rose with its broad blossoms that display 

 five pink petals. On a wild rose or a full-blown garden rose you 

 can easily see the great number of stamens, about twenty, as a 

 rule, a characteristic feature of the whole family. Usually there 

 are a great many pistils also. 



