THE ROSE OF ENGLAND 59 



It is pink and it is white, and in its yellow anthers we catch 

 the promise of the gorgeous things that will emerge under 

 cultivation and hybridisation. 



The gardener owes to the dog-rose other thanks too. It 

 supplies the power of life to our garden standards, as the 

 wild crab, its nearest rival in the list of hedgerow beauties, 

 to our apples. It is surely one of the strangest mysteries of 

 botany, the mother science of the world, that the budded 

 scion should be thus fed by the vitality of the wild plant's 



CHAFFINCH'S NEST 



juices and yet be untouched in mien and character. But the 

 wild thing rebels sometimes at the service. There are 

 garden roses which are reluctant to flower on their own 

 roots, and are always budded at the base of a wild plant. 

 The frequency of the wild brier in the wilder parts of many 

 gardens is no doubt in part due to the direct victory of the 

 wild over the tame. The budded stock has triumphed over 

 the inserted slip and relapsed to its native state. 



England is rich in native roses, more rich than many 

 good observers quite know. We have native wild roses that 

 differ widely in all the marks by which we recognise roses : 

 in flower, in scent, in leaf, in thorn, and in habit. Some of 



