BRIER ROSES 63 



blossoms, witli their dainty rosy depths and sweetest 

 perfume, the whole sentiment of the deeply-rooted 

 English love of flower-beauty and purest enjoyment of 

 garden-delight. 



The Rose of this class that seems to be the most 

 vigorous of all, and that comes next in time of bloom- 

 ing, is the double white. In habit of growth it is the 

 one most like the common ancestor, the wild Burnet 

 Rose, making dense bushy masses and bearing a pro- 

 fusion of neatly-shaped flowers. Then comes the 

 double yellow, the slowest and weakest of growth, but 

 with large loosely-shaped flowers of a very tender and 

 beautiful pale yellow colour. I suppose it to be a 

 hybrid, and to derive the tint from the yellow Aus- 

 trian. This Austrian Brier in the single and double 

 forms is also on the same bank, with its splendidly 

 coloured variety the Austrian Copper ; but they are of 

 Oriental origin and do better against a warm wall. In 

 the Austrian Copper, the vivid scarlet of the inside of 

 the petal is laid on in a thin film over a ground of 

 yellow. To get the same powerful quality of red 

 colouring a painter has to use exactly the same artifice. 

 I notice that Nasturtiums are painted in the same 

 manner, but here the film of colour is laid on still more 

 delicately, for whereas in the Brier petal one can peel 

 off the red surface and show the yellow ground, one 

 cannot do it in the Nasturtium. Here the texture of 

 the petal is not so tough, and the most delicate touch 

 with a fine needle breaks up the fragile skin, leaving 



