CHAP. XLII. 7JOSA V CEiE. RO K SA. 74-9 



Australia ; and they have been in cultivation in the Old World, for the beauty 

 and fragrance of their flowers, from time immemorial. As the culture of 

 roses belongs more to floriculture than to arboriculture, it will be found given 

 at greater length in our Encyclopaedia of Gardening, than we should here feel 

 ourselves justified in entering into ; because the forcing of roses, for example, 

 cannot be considered as belonging to arboriculture. Nevertheless, we shall, 

 after having described the different species, and described or enumerated their 

 principal botanical varieties, treat, in a succinct manner on all the points 

 which merit the attention of either the arboriculturist or the florist. After 

 each species, therefore, we shall only touch on those points of culture and 

 management which are peculiar to it, reserving what is general to ail the spe- 

 cies for a concluding article. 



The genus Rosa is in a state of confusion still greater than that which 

 subsists among the different kinds of i?ubus ; nor can it well be otherwise, 

 when we consider that the greater number of kinds in cultivation are garden 

 productions, and that the wild kinds differ exceedingly according to soil and 

 situation, and have been chiefly described by botanists from dried speci- 

 mens. In general, if the reader considers the plant at the head of each sec- 

 tion in our arrangement as a species, and all the others as varieties, or races ; 

 or, perhaps, as subspecies, or hybrids, which have originated between it and 

 some other section, he will err on the safe side. Nature, it is observed in the 

 Nouveau Du Hamel, " appears scarcely to have placed any limit between the 

 different species of the rose ; and, if it is already very difficult to define the 

 wild species, which have not yet been modified by culture, it is almost impos- 

 sible to refer to their original type the numerous varieties which culture has 

 made in the flowers of species already so nearly resembling each other." 

 (A 7 . Du Ham., vii. p. 55.) 



The best scientific work on the genus 2?6sa is considered to be the Rosarum 

 Monographia of Dr. Lindley, in one vol. 8vo, published in 1819, in which above 

 100 sorts are described, and some of them figured. A Collection of Roses from Na- 

 ture, by Miss Lawrence, contains figures of 90 sorts, and is a valuable popular 

 work. An article on the Scotch roses, by Mr. Sabine, in Hort. Trans., vol. iv., 

 contains a copious account of the principal varieties which were raised, pre- 

 viously to the date of the paper, from the Rosa spinosissima. The last British 

 popular work which we shall mention on the rose is the New Descriptive 

 Catalogue of Roses cultivated in the Sawbridgeworth Nursei-y ; which, for those 

 who cultivate the rose as a florist's flower, is the best English work extant. 

 (See a review of it in Gard. Mag., vol. x. p. 509.) In France, the first grand 

 work on roses was a folio volume, entitled Les Roses, by Redoute and Thory ; 

 previously to which, in 1800, was published UHistoire Naturelle de la Rose, by 

 Guillemeau. Prodrome de la Monographic du Genre Rosier was published by 

 Thory in 1820; and, about the same time, a Nomenclature Raisonnee, by Pron- 

 ville ; and various nurserymen's catalogues, new editions of which, containing 

 numerous additional sorts, are continually being published. In the Bon Jar- 

 dinier for 1836 a good selection of sorts is given, and the names of all the prin- 

 cipal persons by whom roses are cultivated for sale on the Continent. The 

 substance of all that has been written on roses, as far as respects describing 

 species and varieties, will be found in Don's Miller, vol. ii., which includes 

 205 species. The arrangement is nearly the same as that of Lindley's Rosarum 

 Monographia ; and the descriptions are taken either from that work, or from 

 De Candolle's Prodromus, with a few exceptions. 



We have adopted the arrangement in Don's Miller, with the exception of 

 omitting the first section, Simplicifolia, now made a separate genus by Dr. 

 Lindley ; and we have taken a number of the specific characters from that 

 work, translating the others from De Candolle's Prodromus. 



The best collection of species and varieties of roses in the neighbourhood 

 of London is in the arboretum of Messrs. Loddiges ; and, perhaps, the best 

 general collection of florist's roses is in the Hammersmith Nursery. In the 

 Horticultural Society's Garden there is a good selection of florist's roses ; 

 there are also good collections in the Brenchly and Mansfield Nurseries, both 



