1556 



arid Mr. Borrer made seventeen distinct species alto- 

 gether, Mr. Benthain recognizes only five ; and other 

 authorities distinguish seven, nine, and thirteen respec- 

 tively. Here in the hedgerow grows a second sort, the 

 field-rose, with more trailing stems, paler white flowers, 

 and more globular fruit besides the purely technical 

 character that all its styles are united together into a tall 

 projecting column, instead of issuing separately from a 

 little vent in the calyx. Scentless, the books usually 

 call it, too, though to me it has a distinct and pleasant 

 perfume, fainter than the dog-rose's, but undeniably real 

 and perceptible. This bush, however, merges by infini- 

 tesimal gradations into the true dog-rose, so that even 

 experienced botanists of the old dogmatic type cannot 

 always tell you to which of the two species they would 

 verbally assign a particular specimen. Each has his own 

 nostrum his special point on which he relies in diagno- 

 sis ; and no two of them ever agree as to what it shall 

 be, nor can any of them give you a valid reason for pre- 

 ferring his private system to anybody else's. 



Then, again, on the other side, the dog-rose merges 

 equally into the sweetbrier, for though it is usually 

 glandless, it has often a few small glands on the edge of 

 the leaflets to guard it from caterpillars or aphides ; and 

 tlese are scattered freely on the under side and the leaf- 

 stalks as well in the more typical sweetbriers. Yet the 

 truest sweetbrier of all is undoubtedly an artificial 

 human product, made by selecting the best or most 

 aromatic natural specimens and cultivating or breeding 

 from them under the most favorable circumstances. 

 Some botanists have divided even this into two species. 



In a third direction, the dog-rose varies through its 

 hairier varieties toward the downy rose, with a prickly 

 fruit and a more erect bushy stem. 



