236 WOOD AND GARDEN 



worth growing for its sweetness, that much to my 

 regret I have lost. 



I observe that when a Rose exists in both single 

 and double form the scent is increased in the double 

 beyond the proportion that one would expect. Eosa 

 lucida in the ordinary single state has only a very 

 shght scent ; in the lovely double form ib is very sweet, 

 and has acquired somewhat of the Moss-rose smeU. 

 The wild Bumet-rose {R. sjoinosissima) has very little 

 smell ; but the Scotch Briars, its garden relatives, have 

 quite a powerful fragrance, a pale flesh-pink kind, 

 whose flowers are very round and globe-hke, being the 

 sweetest of all. 



But of all the sweet scents of bush or flower, the 

 ones that give me the greatest pleasure are those of the 

 aromatic class, where they seem to have a wholesome 

 resinous or balsamic base, with a delicate perfume 

 added. When I pick and crush in my hand a twig of 

 Bay, or brush against a bush of Rosemary, or tread 

 upon a tuft of Thyme, or pass through incense-laden 

 brakes of Cistus, I feel that here is aU that is best and 

 purest and most refined, and nearest to poetry, in the 

 range of faculty of the sense of smell. 



The scents of all these sweet shrubs, many of 

 them at home in dry and rocky places in far-away 

 lower latitudes, recall in a way far more distinct than 

 can be done by a mere mental effort of recollection, 

 rambles of years ago in many a lovely southern land — 

 in the islands of the Greek Archipelago, beautiful in 



