BOOK XXI. X. 18-20 



forced by the hand, and is alwa^^s like a bud ; the 

 petals are very broad. Another kind sprinjjfs from 

 a stem like that of the mallow, with leaves Hke oHve 

 leaves, called mucetum." Between these ** in size 

 is an autumn rose, named coroniola (Httle chaplet) ; 

 all of these ^ are without perfume except coi-oniola 

 and the rose growing on a bramble. In so many 

 ways is spuriousness possible ! '^ In other districts 

 too the genuine rose also depends to a very great 

 extent upon tlie soil for its main characteristics. 

 The rose of Cyrene has the finest perfume,'^ for which 

 reason the choicest ointment is to be obtained there. 

 At Carthage in Spain there is an early rose that 

 blossoms throughout the w inter. Weather too makes 

 a difference ; for in certain years the rose grows with 

 less perfume, and furthermore all roses have more 

 perfume on dry soils than on moist. It Hkes to be 

 grown on soils that are neither rich nor clayey nor 

 irrigated, being content with a rubbly soil,^ and fond 

 in particular of ground on which rubble has been 

 spread. The Campanian rose is early, the Milesian 

 late, but the one that continues to flower the latest 

 is the Praenestine. The ground is dug deeper for 

 roses than for crops,/ but shallower than for vines. 

 They are very slow in growing from the seed, which 

 is in the shell itself, right under the flower, and 

 covered with down. For this reason it is preferred 

 to graft shoots into an incision in the stem. And 

 into the eyelets of the root, as with the reed, there is 

 grafted one kind of rose that is pale, prickly, with 



« With Mayhoff's reading, " dews." 



f Friiges is a word with a fairly wide range of meanings, 

 but here seems to refer to leguminous and cereal plants, etc., 

 and not to fruit-trees. 



