116 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tened in. So also defective roses might be made to deceive when 

 shown in boxes of moss, — by tucldng a little moss underneath, 

 many large petalled roses might be kept in place. Coquette de 

 Blanche and Marechal Niel have slender stems, so that the flowers 

 hang over and do not show to good advantage, but when stuck in 

 moss the}^ stand upright. 



Mr. Gray replied that Mr. Hovey could not have examined the 

 roses shown here in boxes. They were in tin tubes, with the flowers 

 six inches above the moss, and the petals not at all supported by it. 



John G. Barker, Chairman of the Flower Committee, said that 

 his individual opinion was in favor of boxes, and that the reason 

 why the committee had returned to bottles for the society's prizes 

 after having used boxes, was that exhibitors objected to the expense 

 of furnishing boxes. 



Mr. Hovey alluded to the fine specimens of the Cherokee rose 

 on the table, from E. S. Rand, Jr., and said that to produce such 

 flowers it must be grown ver}'^ strong. He had grown it, but was 

 unable to give it the space required. He doubted the commonly 

 received opinion that it is a native of China, and thought it indi- 

 genous to the Southern States. 



President Parkman here read from Dr. Gray's " Field, Forest, 

 and Garden Botany," p. 126, the description of the Cherokee rose 

 {Rosa Sinica or Icevigata) which is classed with M. hracteata, as 

 naturalized in the Southern States from China ; and from Elliot's 

 " Botany of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. i, p. 566, where R. 

 Icevigata is said, in 182], to have "been cultivated in the gardens 

 in Georgia for upwards of forty years under the name of the 

 ' Cherokee Rose,' but its origin is still obscure." 



Leander Wetherell asked what evidence there is that it is not 

 native, and remarked that a grass, Poapratensis, formerly supposed 

 to be of European origin, had lately been found growing in the 

 "West, where it was deemed that it could not possibly have been 

 introduced. 



Mr. Hovey did not believe that Rosa Sinica, which, according 

 to Loudon and Paxton, was not introduced into England until 

 1759, could have been common in Georgia in 1780. Dr. Lindley 

 (Rosarum Monographia, p. 126) has pointed out the diflEerence 

 between this species and R. Icevigata, which latter he describes as 

 a native of Georgia. 



