202 Flowers and their Pedls^rees. 



acquaintance, like the pear or the hawthorn. But as 

 they form the most central typical specimen of the 

 rose tribe which we now possess in England, it is 

 almost necessary to start our description with them, 

 just as in tracing a family pedigree we must set out 

 from the earliest recognisable ancestor, even though 

 he may be far less eminent and less well-known than 

 many of his later descendants. For to a form very 

 much like the potentillas all the rose family trace 

 their descent. The two best known species of poten- 

 tilla are the goose-weed or silver-weed, and the cinque- 

 foil.^ Both of them are low creeping herb-like weeds, 

 with simple bright yellow blossoms about the size of 

 a strawberry flower, having each five golden petals, 

 and bearing a number of small dry brown seeds on a 

 long green stalk. At first sight a casual observer 

 would hardly take them for roses at all, but a closer 

 view would show that they resemble in all essential 

 particulars an old-fashioned single yellow rose in 

 miniature. From some such small creeping plants as 

 these all the roses are probably descended. Observe, 

 I do not say that they are the direct offspring of the 

 potentillas, but merely that they are the offspring of 

 some very similar simple form. We ourselves do not 

 derive our origin from the Icelanders ; but the Ice- 



» See fig. 43. 



