NOVEMBER. 513 



THE ROSE. 



BY PROF. CIIAS. G. PAGE, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Deservedly at the head of all floriculture, excelling all 

 flowers in its unceasing developments of novelties and beau- 

 ties, the Rose is not only to be cherished for its fascinations, 

 but is justly entitled to that which it has never yet received, 

 viz., a systematic description of the varieties. This remark 

 has no reference to the botany of the Rose, (of itself suffi- 

 ciently vague,) but to the innumerable varieties resulting from 

 cultivation, where botanical distinctions are either merged or 

 lost. As a fashion, a passion, or a mania, the Rose, at the 

 time of Nero's great rose banquet, stood preeminently high 

 among flowers ; but where was Devoniensis and Clemence 

 Rufiin* when Cleopatra received her paramour upon a thou- 

 sand dollars' worth of rose leaves, or when the tyrant of Rome 

 regaled his courtiers with one hundred and fifty thousand 

 dollars' worth at one sitting ? There was but one idea, but 

 one attribute, (if we may except the peculiar softness and 

 coolness of rose petals,) impelling these luxurious nobles into 

 such inordinate extravagance, and that was the tempting 

 odor of the rose. It is this which has given for centuries the 

 commercial value to the rose, for the manufacture of the 

 ottar and rose water, and for an ornament to the garden ; but 

 for twenty years past, the commercial value of the rose has 

 gone up in another scale. The great traffic now is not in 

 roses, but in varieties of roses, and it is important that some 

 rules of trade should be adopted ; and first among these I 

 would suggest some standard and definite mode of describing 

 roses, so as to convey to all at once the true character of the 

 rose. Those who purchase roses by catalogue are constantly 

 disappointed in the color and form, fulness and size of roses. 

 We can hardly find two florists or rose cultivators agreeing 

 in their description of the color and fulness of roses. Take 

 Devoniensis for an example. Paul says its " color is creamy 



* Clemence Ruffin is called by Paul a Bourbon Perpetual. It is between the Bourbon 

 and Remoulaut, partaking more of the latter, and always in bloom while in a growing- 

 condition. It is the most delicious of fragrauit roses. 



VOL. xxn. — NO. XL 65 



