ON THE CULTURE OF EOSES. 



295 



" when the branches are perennial, and supported upon a trunk, 

 a tree is said to be formed."* 



If I recollect rightly, Loudon has somewhere set the boundary 

 mark for a tree at from " four to six inches diameter, with a 

 single bole or stem." Now there are rose-plants here with stems 

 six inches in diameter; still these dimensions do not constitute 

 them rose-trees ; for the common laurel will attain a diameter of 

 six feet, and form an enormous head, yet the normal form of the 

 laurel, as well as that of the rose, is decidedly a shrub ; and 

 accordingly in botanical works we find them constantly so named. 

 The largest rose-plant to be met with scarcely amounts to the 

 character of a small tree (arbuseulus) by any reasonable stretch 

 of courtesy. But I am reminded to get rose-plants with the ap- 

 pearance at least, and with the size of head of a tree (arbor), 

 ay, even of such a tree as the princely cedar so graphically 

 portrayed by Ezekiel in his vision of the fall of the kings of 

 Egypt and Assyria ; and if the fall of such a tree be terrible to 

 behold, surely its standing clad with roses would be majestic and 

 goodly fair to see. 



The rose is unquestionably the most popular flower known, 

 and its geographical range embraces, according to Loudon ( Arb. 

 Brit.), Europe, and the temperate regions of Asia, Africa, and 

 America : in all these it is said to be found wild, but not in 

 Australia. Now I have it from an eye-witnessf that in the 

 wilds of Australia the rose is seen in abundance, in the form of 

 sweet-briar ; it seems, therefore, to be as universally distributed 

 as it is universally admired. From the language of holy writ it 

 is clear that the rose was held in high esteem in the days of King 

 Solomon ; for if we compare the sentence, c * I am the rose of 

 Sharon," as rendered by King James's translators, with the same 

 sentence in the Douay version of the Bible, " I am the flower of 

 the field," and add the sentence, " I was exalted as a rose-plant 

 in Jericho" (Eccles. xxiv. 18), we may conclude that in the 

 valley of the J ordan there were fields of roses, and that the rose 

 was there held in such favour as bordered on veneration, and this 

 3000 years before our day. In Geramb's Pilgrimage to Pales- 

 tine in 1831, we find the following passages: — "The plain of 

 Sharon which I traversed, so extolled in Scripture, was ena- 

 melled with flowers," — " Rama, nearly on the borders of the 

 plain of Sharon, is in a delightful situation," — " The weather 

 was brilliant, and reminded me of the beautiful spring days of 

 Italy and farther on he adds, that in climbing the hills of 

 Judea, " where there is not a trace of a road or of a plant save a 



* Lindley's Introduction to Botany, 

 t Bishop Wilson, of Hobart Towu. 



