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A BASK El OF ROSES. 



EXHIBITION ROSES. 



By Edward Mawley, F.R.H.S., F.R.Met.Soc, Hon. Secretin-)' National Ruse Society. 



" Would Jove appoint some flower to reign 

 In matchless beauty on the plain, 

 The Rose (mankind will all agree), 

 The Rose the Queen of Flowers should be." — Sappho. 



IN order to form an adequate idea as to the perfection to which any florists' flower has 

 been brought, a visit should be paid to an exhibition devoted exclusively to that flower. 

 For instance, it is generally acknowledged that the Rose is the " Queen of Flowers," 

 but it is only by going to a thoroughly representative Rose show, like that held annually 

 by the National Rose Society at the Crystal Palace, that one can fully appreciate why it 

 should have been accorded such a proud position in the first instance, and why it should have 

 retained that position virtually unchallenged for centuries. At an exhibition like this the 

 various stands of "Garden" or Decorative Roses will, no doubt, first command attention 

 by their charming tints, and the bold way in which the flowers of each variety are massed 

 together and raised above the general level of the other exhibits. The dainty blossoms thus 

 displayed are always most attractive, but after all they are as it were only the children — the 

 immature representatives — of the Rose, and consequently few of them will bear critical 

 examination. They are mostly under-sized, and either have but a scanty supply of petals, or 

 those petals are irregularly arranged. No ; to see our Floral Queen in all her beauty we must 

 pass on to the numerous boxes of " exhibition " Roses — as the largest and choicest varieties 

 of the Hybrid Perpetuals, the Hybrid Teas, and the Teas and Noisettes are styled — this title 

 having been given them when they were the only Roses considered worthy of a place at a 

 Rose show. 



It is here, notwithstanding the stiff and formal manner in which the blooms are 



