II HISTORY AND CLASSIFICATION 27 



has so increased of late years that raisers of new 

 Eoses hesitate to label their productions anything 

 else. The time is no doubt fast approaching when 

 the old-fashioned lines of demarcation will have 

 disappeared, and the National Rose Society will 

 have to evolve a new classification. 



The Bourbon Base was introduced from the Isle of 

 Bourbon about the year 1825. This group is noted 

 for its sweet scent, and also for its very good 

 autumnal qualities, the true Bourbons generally giving 

 better blooms in the second crop. It has been quite 

 a large class. Mr. William Paul enumerates forty- 

 six varieties in The Base Garden, but few of them 

 remain except the one celebrated sort Souvenir de la 

 Malmaison. It seems to me highly probable that a 

 much larger proportion of our H.P.s have some of 

 the influence of this grand autumnal strain in their 

 constitutions than is generally imagined ; and as the 

 modern Bourbons, Madame Isaac Pereire, Mrs. Paul, 

 J. B. M. Camm, and Purity are evidently hybrids, 

 it was advisable that all perpetual forms of this 

 group also, should be merged in the large class of 

 H.P.s. 



The China Bose (E. indica). — This group, truest of 

 Perpetuals, was introduced into this country from 

 China about the year 1789. The Common Pink, 

 otherwise known as the Monthly Eose because it is 

 always in flower, and the Crimson were imported 

 separately about the same time; and all other 

 varieties have resulted from these types. They are 

 not very strong growers, do best on their own roots 

 in a warm soil, and the flowers, with little or no 

 scent, have little to recommend them beyond the 

 one good quality in which they are unsurpassed — 



