230 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



to it when Hotspur makes his reproachful speech to tlie earls of Northumberland and 

 Worcester, accusing them of trjing 



"To put down Richard, that sweet, lovely Rose, 

 And plant this thorn, this Canker Boliugbroke !" 



Therein meaning a usurper, which is certainly an unfair use of the term when applied 

 to our own native wild hedge-side Rose, blowing in our quiet country lanes, or clothing 

 dry sand-banks with a spring robe of beauty, and perfuming the air with its sweetness. 



Geoup v.— SYSTYL/E. 



Buslies with sub-erect or trailing stems ; shoots witli the prickles 

 scattered, uniform, not intermingled with aciculi or gland-tipped 

 setae. Leaves glabrous above and glabrous or slightly hairy 

 beneath. Pedicels numerous, in a sub-umbellate cyme, furnished 

 with sessile glands or gland-tipped aciculi or naked. Styles united 

 into a column. Emit ovoid or subglobose, with deciduous sepals. 



SPECIES XV.— ROSA SYSTYLA. Woods. 



Plate CCCCLXXV. 

 £aker, in Nat. 1864, p. 143. 

 R collina, Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 1895. 



Stem erect or arching ; prickles scattered, large, curved, uni- 

 form, not intermingled with aciculi or gland-tipped setse. Leaflets 

 elliptical acuminate, sharply and unequally serrate, but not regularly 

 doubly serrate, glabrous above, sjiaringly pubescent on the veins 

 beneath, nearly or entirely destitute of glands. Pedicels rather 

 elongate, with elliptical acuminate bracts, furnished with a 

 few short gland-tipped aciculi and seta3, very rarely naked. Petals 

 pink. Styles glabrous, united, forming a column of variable length, 

 surrounded by a convex disk destitute of glands. Stigmas in an 

 ovoid head. Fruit ovoid, rarely globular, scarlet. Sepals deci- 

 duous, moderately long, leaf-pointed, and pinnate. 



In hedges and thickets. Rare, and apparently confined to the 

 southern counties of England, where it has occurred in Somerset, 

 Sussex, Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Gloucester, Worcester, Cambridge, 

 and in South Wales. 



England, Ireland. Shrub. Summer. 



A tall plant, often 8 or 10 feet high, with the habit of H. canina, 

 but with the leaves usually more sharply serrated and the corymb 

 consisting of more numerous flowers. FloNvers of the size and 

 colour of those of R. canina. 



