254 rose. 



Description. — Common Dog-Rose is a straggling shrub, vary- 

 ing from six to ten feet in height. Tlie stems are diffuse, much 

 branched, glabrous ; the branches of a light green colour often 

 tinged with red, armed with strong, scattered, hooked, com- 

 pressed prickles, considerably dilated at the base. The leaves 

 are distant, composed of five to seven ovate or oblong, flat or 

 concave, acute or rounded, subsessile leaflets, with acute, unequal, 

 sometimes compound serratures, which are destitute of glands ; 

 the petioles are furnished with a few small-hooked prickles, and 

 with bifid, acute, somewhat reflexed stipulae at the base. The 

 flowers are sometimes solitary, sometimes forming cymes ; pe- 

 duncles smooth, with two opposite ovate-lanceolate, acute, 

 rather concave, finely toothed bractea?, glandular at the edge. 

 The calyx has a smooth, ovate, or somewhat elliptical tube, 

 and a five-parted limb, the divisions pinnate, spreading, sharp- 

 pointed, and deciduous. The corolla is composed of five ob- 

 cordate concave petals, of a delicate pink colour, whitish at the 

 base, and of a fragrant odour. The stamens are numerous, 

 with spreading setaceous filaments inserted into the calyx ; the 

 anthers, yellow, innate, two-celled. The disk is very thick and 

 elevated. The germens-are numerous (twenty to thirty), oblong, 

 rather woolly, included in the tube of the calyx; styles included 

 or a little exserted, nearly smooth, crowned with turbinate, 

 truncate stigmas. The fruit is ovate or oblong, scarlet, shining, 

 formed by the enlarged fleshy tube of the calyx, and enclosing 

 the pericarps. The pericarps or carpels * are somewhat ovate, 

 uneven, bony, whitish, bristly, indehiscent, one-seeded. Plate 

 38, fig. 3, (a) longitudinal section of the calyx, shewing the 

 pistils and stamens ; (b) fruit ; (c) pericarp, isolated. 



This species of Rose, so deservedly prized for the simple 

 beauty and elegant perfume of its flowers, is frequent in almost 

 every hedge and thicket. It is native throughout Europe and 

 the north of Africa. The flowers appear in June and July, 

 and the fruit ripens at the beginning of winter. 



The generic name is derived from the Celtic Rhos (from 

 rhodd, red) ; the origin most probably of the Greek pofav, and of 

 the European synonymes of the plant. This species is called 

 by Pliny f cynorrhodon, from xuvjj, a dog, folov, a rose; in allusion 



* Commonly called " seeds. " 

 f Hist. lib. viii. cap. 41. 



