SHE1JBBY AST) SUB-SHEUBBY PLOWEES. 



133 



of a perfect rose, hoping one of these days to meet with, as 

 we are promised, a Yellow Moss Perpetual ; and give no 

 just cause to Paul and Son, Wood and Son, or Lane and 

 Son, or Mitchell, or Clark, or Grier, or Bircham of Heden- 

 ham, or others, for whose names there is no room in a 

 brief prose rose-epic, to regard each other with sour and 

 jealous looks, because you have favoured some with your 

 presence and have slighted their competitors. Make a 

 complete rhodological tour, as far as lies within your power. 



You will find groups or classes of roses, with very dis- 

 tinctive characters, which may be divided into Late- 

 Spring and Summer Roses, and Autumnal and Winter 

 Eoses. Of the first, we have the 'Provence or Cabbage 

 Hose, which is no other than the B. ceniifolia, or Hun- 

 dred-leaved Eose, from the number of its petals, not its 

 leaves. Of this there are several varieties in point of 

 colour. The Queen of Provence is paler and more lilacky 

 than the common sort ; the Scarlet Provence is merelv a 

 carmine-tinted flower. The Unique is a w T hite Eose of 

 extreme purity, probably proceeding from the Cabbage 

 Eose by what is called " sporting, 5 ' i.e. when a sucker or 

 a branch of the original plant changes its character with- 

 out assignable cause. These " sports" are only perpetu- 

 ated by budding, grafting, or layering, and even then 

 are far from permanent, showing a constant tendency to 

 revert to the original type. Thus, on the same branch 

 of the Unique you will sometimes have a completely red 

 flower by the side of a white one. The Striped Unique 

 has the petals exquisitely striped with pink, like those of 

 a delicate tulip. This, too, is not to be depended upon 

 for stability of character. Sometimes a bloom will come 

 half white and half striped, sometimes half red 

 and half striped, and occasionally half white and 

 half red, without any stripes at all ; and that perhaps 

 on the very same bush. The Crested Provence, some- 

 times erroneously called, the Crested Moss, is very beauti- 

 ful before it is fully expanded. It is in all respects like 

 the Cabbage Eose, except that on the outer divisions of 

 the calyx there grows, not moss, but a kind of stiff irregu- 



