120 THE BOURBON ROSE. 



officer was requested by the widow of a Monsieur 

 Edouard, residing in the island, to find, on his 

 voyage to India, some rare rose, and that, on his 

 return to L'lle de Bourbon, he brought with him 

 this rose, which she planted on her husband's 

 grave : it was then called Rose Edouard, and sent 

 to France as ' Eose de L'lle de Bourbon.' This 

 is pretty enough, but entirely devoid of truth. 

 Monsieur Breon, a French botanist, gives the fol- 

 lowing account, for the truth of which he vouches : 

 ' At the Isle of Bourbon the inhabitants gene- 

 rally inclose their land with hedges made of two 

 rows of roses, one row of the Common China Rose, 

 the other of the Red Four-Seasons. Monsieur 

 Perichon, a proprietor at Saint Benoist, in the 

 Isle, in planting one of these hedges, found 

 amongst his young plants one very different from 

 the other in its shoots and foliage. This induced 

 him to plant it in his garden. It flowered the 

 following year ; and, as he anticipated, proved to 

 be of quite a new race, and differing much from 

 the above two roses, which, at the time, were the 

 only sorts known in the island. Monsieur Breon 

 arrived at Bourbon in 1817, as botanical traveller 

 .for the Government of France, and curator of the 

 Botanical and Naturalisation Garden there. He 

 propagated this rose very largely, and sent plants 

 and seeds of it, in 1822, to Monsieur Jacques,* 



* Whence the name often given to the Common Bourbon Eose 

 of { Bourbon Jacques. 5 



