44 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIKTY. 



owe all the China and Tea-scented roses, while to its foreign alliances we are 

 indebted for a vast and increasing- host of brilliant hybrids. 



Thus, from the families of pure blood, we come at length to those in which 

 is mingled that of two or more distinct races. Convey the pollen of a China 

 rose to the stigmas of a French, Damask, or Provence rose, and from the re- 

 sulting seed an offspring arises different from either parent. Hence a new 

 group of roses known as the Hybrid Chinas. The parents are both of moderate 

 growth. The offspring is usually of such vigor as to form with readiness a 

 pillar eight feet high. Its foliage is distinct, its bloom often as profuse and 

 brilliant as that of the China, and its constitution as hardy, or nearly so, as 

 that of the French rose. Unlike the former, it blooms but once in the year, 

 or, only in a few exceptional instances, shows a straggling autunmal flower. 

 By a vicious system of subdivision, the group has been separated into Hybrid 

 China, Hybrid Bourbon, and Hybrid Noisette. The two latter are the same 

 as the first, except, in the one case, a slight infusion of the Damask Perpetual 

 and in the latter of the Musk rose. In many cases, no human discernment 

 could detect the effects of the admixture. 



Again, convey the pollen of the China or Tea rose to the flowers of the 

 Musk, or vice versa, and for a result we obtain the Noisette, inheriting from 

 the former various staking characteristics of foliage and bloom, and from the 

 latter its vigorous climbing habit and clustering inflorescence. But, by im- 

 pregnation through several generations, some of the Noisettes retain so little of 

 their Musk parent, that its traits are almost obliterated; they no longer bloom 

 in clusters, and can scarcely be distinguished from the pure Tea rose. 



Again, a union of a Damask Perpetual with a China rose has produced a 

 distinct race, of vigorous habit and peculiar foliage, possessing in a high 

 degree the ever-blooming character of both its parents. It is hardier than the 

 China rose, though usually unable to bear a New England winter unpro- 

 tected. This is the Bourbon rose, a brilliant and beautiful group, worth all 

 the care which, in this latitude, its out-door culture requires. 



The Moss rose, impregnated with various ever-blooming varieties, has 

 borne hybrids partially retaining the mossy stem and calyx, with a tendency 

 more or less manifest to bloom in the autumn. Hence the group of the Per- 

 petual Moss, a few only of whose members deserve the name. 



It is evident that by continuing the process of hybridizing, hybrids may be 

 mixed with hybrids, till the blood of half a score of the original races are 

 mingled in one plant. This, in some cases, is without doubt actually the case ; 

 and this bastard progeny must of necessity be classified rather by its visible 

 characteristics than by its parentage. Thus a host of ever-blooming hybrids, 

 which are neither Noisette nor Bourbon, nor Perpetual Moss, have been cast 

 into one grand group, under the comprehensive title of Hybrid Perpetuals. 

 Whence have they sprung? What have been their parents ? The question 

 is easier asked than answered, for, as in a great nation of the West, one may 

 discern the lineaments and hear the accents of diverse commintrled races, so 



