

48 THE ROSE. 
the learned English gardener, obtained it in 1727. 
The Countess de Genlis introduced it into Paris 
about twenty years after that date. 
But an unexpected era was now approaching. 
All was changed when the Tea Rose reached us 
from China, and the Bengal Rose from India. 
These precious shrubs—near relations, however, 
of the Dog Rose of our own woods—were the 
richest presents that the soil of India could give 
us. We possessed the finest of roses, but they 
only blossomed during a few days at the end of 
the spring; the new comers decorated our gar- 
dens to the end of autumn with an abundance 
and freshness of foliage and flowers hitherto 
unapproached. . 
These were, however, only half the treasures 
scattered by Flora over the gardens which she 
loves. The marriage of the old with the fruitful 
young rose was soon consummated, and from that 
time the wand of the fairy multiplied the beau- 
ties in the hands of our ablest florists. Hybrid- 
isation and seedlings aiding each other, there 
is scarcely a limit to the caprice of the most 
daring cultivator. 


