BORDER ROSES AND CLIMBERS 145 



petals and central brush of gold, is worthy a place in 

 every garden. We have a hedge of it in the Herb gar- 

 den because it was so esteemed of old in the manufacture 

 of many pleasant things. The single blossoms yield a 

 rare perfume, and while the bush is not so well set up and 

 sturdy as the Provence it is very fine and glowing in 

 its June beneficence. This Rose came from Syria to 

 Europe in the train of the Crusaders. Of late years 

 some beautiful hybrid Damask Roses have been in- 

 troduced, but they are not yet offered by our nursery- 

 men, save the fair Mad. Hardy, which has the Provence 

 Rose for its other parent and resembles it more nearly. 

 The quaint York and Lancaster Rose, with its im- 

 partial red and white stripes, is a Damask and grows 

 into great bushes bearing freely its fragrant parti- 

 coloured flowers; Rosa gallica, the Apothecaries Rose, in 

 its striped forms, is often confused with the York and 

 Lancaster. 



In the front yard of this place, when we came here to 

 live, we found thickets of Maiden's Blush Roses, the Rose 

 of Mrs. Browning's poem, and all about the neighbour- 

 hood in the simple dooryards, pressing their flushed 

 faces through the faded palings, are her sisters. This is 

 a variety of Rosa alba, the White Rose of old gardens, 

 which dates back to the sixteenth century, and which 

 has never lost its popularity in rural neighbourhoods. 

 Both aphis and mildew attack this Rose. We powder 

 the bushes well with hellebore twice before the leaves 



