Rosaceae — Rosa. 155 
R. centifolia, Hundred-leaved Rose, is the true classical 
species, one of the most beautiful, the most deliciously scented, 
the one sung by the poets of all epochs, and the one which held 
the first rank in our gardens until the arrival of the Perpetual 
species from China and India, which without sufficient reason 
have banished it to the second or third place. The attar of 
Roses of commerce is furnished to a great extent by the varieties 
of this species. Even in France it is cultivated on a consider- 
able scale for the needs of perfumery. 
It is a bush 3 to 6 feet in height, having its stems armed 
with unequal spines interspersed with bristles and glandular 
hairs. The leaves consist of five large broadly ovate doubly 
toothed leaflets with giandular hairs on the margins. The 
flowers are large and more or less double according to the varie- 
ties, solitary or two or three together on the same peduncle, 
drooping, rose or rosy carmine, with the calyx-tube clothed 
with glandular viscose odoriferous hairs. The fruit is ovvid~ 
oblong, but never much elongated, of an orange or reddish colour 
when ripe. 
It is not known with certainty whether this species is a native 
of Southern Europe, although it is found naturalised in many 
places; but it is probable that it was originally brought from 
the East at a very remote period. 
The Hundred-leaved Rose has varied in all directions through 
the influence of climates, soils, culture, and above all, we be- 
lieve, by crossing; but there are three particularly remarkable 
variations—one affecting the size, another the colour, and a 
third the hairy clothing of the calyx-tube. To the first modi- 
fication belong the Miniature Provence or Pompon Roses, ex- 
ceedingly dwarf bushes, whose flowers, without ceasing to be 
double, are veritable miniatures. To the second belong those 
in which the normal rosy carmine is replaced by a more or less 
pure white; and to the third belong the Moss Roses, already 
numerous in varieties, which are distinguished by the curious 
transformation of the hairs of the calyx-tube, and sometimes 
also those of the peduncles and petioles, into a green wad very 
similar to moss. This class of Roses is very much prized in 
England, where, it appears, the first Moss Roses raised from seed 
were observed. 
Nursery catalogues contain the names of several hundreds 
of varieties of ‘ne Centifolia class, either with or without the 
qualification of hybrid. We have already said that the arbi- 
