300 



THE BOOK OF THE ROSE 



CHAP. 



formerly. The blooms coroe well, but occasionally they 

 are divided, and the expanded shape is very loose. 

 They must be cut young for show (when there is often 

 a greenish lemon tinge in the strong young buds which 

 is very becoming) as the shape is not lasting, and when 

 the outside petals come down they fall completely, 

 giving the idea of a total collapse. It is free blooming 

 throughout the season, but the autumnal buds do not 

 come large and require fine weather. It does not do as 

 a dwarf, for the blooms come smaller, and the wood being 

 neither stiff nor upright the petals get much injured by 

 wind and rain unless the flowers are well held up above 

 the ground. It is best for exhibition as a maiden 

 standard, and does well, if fully fed, on a low wall. 



A climbing sport (Keynes, Williams, and Co., 1889") 

 gives promise of being very valuable for the production 

 of cut flowers of this ever useful sort : but it does not 

 seem yet to be thoroughly established, sometimes 

 reverting to the old type and refusing to '■'run.'"' Still, 

 it has undoubtedly proved a success in many places, the 

 long rods blooming from every bud after the fashion of 

 Marechal Niel, though it is as yet too early to say 

 whether the new form will supersede the old one in the 

 forcing of this popular Rose. 



Ophirie (Goubault, 1841). — A true Xoisette, one of the 

 very few that can be so called. A strong, long, rapid 

 grower of vigorous constitution and quite hardy, with 

 abundant but not evergTeen foliage, blooming in clus- 

 ters of queerly coloured and still more queerly shaped 

 flowers. They are very small and nearly always 

 " quartered," which seems indeed the normal shape : and 

 the variety is only noticeable for its quaint coppery red 

 colour, whichl have always imagined somehow or other to 

 be the source of that shade wherever it appear.- in our Tea 



