THE SUMMER ROSE GARDEN, 77 



THE DOUBLE YELLOW ROSE. 



(EOSA SULPHUREA.) 



The origin of this very old and beautiful rose, 

 like that of the Moss Eose, seems lost in ob- 

 scurity. In the botanical catalogues it is made a 

 species, said to be a native of the Levant*, and 

 never to have been seen in a wild state bearing 

 single flowers. It is passing strange, that this 

 double rose should have been always considered a 

 species. Nature has never yet given us a double 

 flowering species to raise single flowering varieties 

 from; but exactly the reverse. We are com- 

 pelled, therefore, to consider the parent of this 

 rose to be a species bearing single flowers. If 

 this single flowering species was a native of the 

 Levant, our botanists, ere now, would have dis- 

 covered its habitats: I cannot help, therefore, 

 suggesting, that to the gardens of the east of 

 Europe we must look for the origin of this rose ; 

 and to the Single Yellow Austrian Briar (Eosa 

 lutea), as its parent ; though that, in a state of 

 nature, seldom, if ever, bears seed, yet, as I have 

 proved, it will if its flowers are fertilised. I do 

 not suppose that the gardeners of the East knew 

 of this, now common, operation ; but it probably 

 was done by some accidental juxtaposition, and 

 thus, by mere chance, one of the most remarkable 



* Introduced to our gardens in 1629. 



