184 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



English word, and that it was not till after the tenth 



century that the Latin rosa was applied to the flower, 



retaining the 'brier' for the bush. In the Epinal 



glossary (eighth century) there is no rose, but there is 



*brear,'and rose first appears in Archbishop ^Ifric's 



glossary in the eleventh centiu-y. Then gradually the 



'brier' was dropped, and both bush and flower were 



rose, but they were still distinguished in Shakespeare's 



time, e.g. — 



'Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier.' 

 ' From oflf this brier pluck a white rose with me. ' 



Roses grow to a great age. I have a Banksia on my 

 own house that is certainly seventy years old, and may 

 be older, and I have no doubt there are many roses in 

 England very much older ; and if we can believe the 

 legend, there is a rose at Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony, 

 that is more than a thousand years old, the cathedral 

 being built for it and over it in a.d. 815. 



Roses have a slight economic and medical value, but 

 their commercial value is very small, except to the 

 nurseryman. The rosewood of commerce does not 

 come from the rose-tree, but from Brazilian and West 

 Indian trees of very difl'erent botanical families ; and 

 the brier-wood pipes, so dear to smokers, are not made 

 from the sweet-brier, but from the white heath (bruyere) 

 of the south of Europe. 



