THE AUTUMNAL ROSE GARDEN. 135 



ing names attached to flowers without distinctive 

 characters. In a little time we shall be able to 

 rectify this very common floricultural error. Many 

 fables have been told by the French respecting 

 the origin of this rose. The most generally re- 

 ceived version of one of these is, that a French 

 naval 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 " Rose de L'lle de Bour- 

 bon." This is pretty enough, but entirely devoid 

 of truth. Monsieur Breon, a French botanist, 

 and now a seedsman in Paris, gives the following 

 account, for the truth of which he vouches : 

 " At the Isle of Bourbon, the inhabitants gene- 

 rally enclose their land with hedges made of two 

 rows of roses, one row of the Common China 

 Rose, the other of the Red Four-Seasons. Mon- 

 sieur 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 

 K 4 



