62 HOME AND GARDEN 



June, and even in the latest of May, is a single one of 

 pale pink colour. It is a plant of weak half-trailing 

 habit, often scarcely rising from the ground ; but the 

 crowded bloom has a tender loveliness that is full of 

 charm. Then follows the Burnet Rose, standing up in 

 bold bushy masses and covered with its crowds of 

 lemon-white single flowers. The next in order of 

 blooming is the half-double rose-coloured. I have had 

 several forms of this, differing a little in shape of 

 flower, and a good deal in colour. One or two have 

 been discarded as less good in colour, only the one I 

 thought best being kept. This has lively flowers of a 

 bright rose-crimson; the colour brightest in the half- 

 opened bloom, in which state also it looks more double 

 than it really is, for it has only three rows of petals. 

 As the flower expands and shows the full yellow 

 bunch of stamens and the white base of the petals, it 

 becomes paler in colour, passing at last into a pale 

 pinkish-white. 



The next Brier to bloom is the double pink, with 

 the strong sweet luscious scent ; the perfect Rose- 

 scent ; the true attar. Perhaps it is this perfect Rose- 

 sweetness that makes this Brier my prime favourite, or 

 it may be the combination of this delightful quality 

 with the merit of its perfect form. But however it 

 may be, this little flower seems to carry me back 

 through the lifetime of past generations, and to put me 

 in friendliest fashion in touch with the flower-lovers of 

 them all ; for to me it bears in its tender half-opened 



