§& The Old "^oses f% 



colour on the upper side, underneath somewhat hoarie 

 and hairie. The flowers growe at the tops of the branches, 

 consisting of an infinite number of leaves greater than 

 those of the Damaske Rose, more double and of a colour 

 betweene the Red and Damaske Roses, of a most sweete 

 smell. The fruit is rounde, red when it is ripe, and stuffed 

 with the like flockes and seedes of the Damaske Rose. 

 The roote is great, woodie and far spreading.' Gerard 

 also grew the Apple rose (R. ■pomifera), which grows 

 wild in many parts of Europe but not Britain. Its chief 

 beauty is its peculiarly vivid red fruit. The yellow, so- 

 called Austrian briar (R. Foetida), which ranges in a wild 

 state from the Crimea through Asia Minor and Persia to 

 the Punjab, was well known in gardens in the sixteenth 

 century. Gerard had both the type and the copper- 

 coloured variety in his Holborn garden in 1596. The 

 flowers have an unpleasant scent, but the leaves when 

 crushed have a pleasant smell, faintly suggestive of 

 apples. 



The first American rose cultivated in Europe was 

 R. virginiana. It must have been introduced fairly early 

 in the seventeenth century, for Parkinson mentions it in 

 his Iheatrum Botanicum (1640). Of it he says : ' The 

 Virginia Bryer Rose hath divers as great stemmes and 

 branches as any other Rose, whose young are greene and 

 the elder greyish, set with many small prickles and a few 

 great thornes among them, the leaves are very greene and 

 shining small and almost round, many set on a middle 

 ribbe one against another somewhat like unto the single 

 yellow Rose : the flowers stand at the toppes of the 

 branches consisting of five small leaves, of a pale purple or 

 deepe incarnate colour like unto those of the sweet brier, 



125 



