1 6 2 Rosace ff Rosa. 



height, but it varies excessively in this respect, as also in 

 habit, according to climate and situation. This polymorphism, 

 moreover, renders it very difficult to describe and distinguish, 

 and the thirty or more species or sub-species into which 

 botanists have cut it up have no well-defined characters. Its 

 most constant characters are : to be unprovided with bristles 

 mixed with the spines, to be glabrous, and to assume an obsc.ure 

 purple tint on the parts most exposed to the sun. The flowers 

 are usually pale rose, more rarely white or inclining to carmine. 

 Lastly, its ovoid-oblong fruits, scarlet when ripe, distinguish 

 it from many neighbouring species where this organ is short 

 and rounded. This Rose has not of itself yielded any garden 

 varieties of note ; but it is not improbable that some hybrid 

 varieties have resulted from crosses of this with other species. 

 Its importance as a stock for standard Rose-trees cannot be over- 

 estimated, as it is very hardy, and produces clean straight 

 stems admirably adapted for this purpose. 



R. Indica, the Tea Rose, despite its name, came from China, 

 where it has probably been cultivated from the most ancient 

 times. It is, like our European species, very variable and 

 uncertain in its characters ; and it is questionable whether it 

 would not be better to unite the following species with it, as 

 some authors have done. For want of data we accept Lindley's 

 opinion, who held it to be a distinct species. 



It is a shrub 5 to 10 feet or more high, with long slender 

 glaucous shoots with scattered hooked brownish spines. The 

 leaves are shining, smooth, composed of 3 to 5 flat ovate- 

 acuminate leaflets of a deep green above and glaucous below. 

 Flowers large, rose, flesh or yellowish in colour, ordinarily semi- 

 double, borne on scabrous elongated peduncles. The fruit 

 is rounded in form, or shortly obovoid, reddish scarlet when 

 mature. One of its varieties, by some distinguished as a 

 species under the name of R. odoratissima, is remarkable 

 for the fragrance of its flowers. The innumerable varieties 

 which have been obtained from it, either directly or by crossing, 

 are far from repeating exactly ths characters that we have 

 just assigned to the specific type. 



The Tea Rose, one of the great modern acquisitions of 

 horticulture, was introduced into Europe towards the end of 

 the last century, though it is not known by whom, nor the 

 exact year. What is certain, however, is that it was seen for 

 the first time in 1793, in the garden of an English amateur 



