466 



On the Ayrshire Rose. 



earlier in the season. Under Rosa sempervirens I therefore 

 propose to place it, considering it to be a deciduous and 

 free growing variety of that species; in order to preserve 

 Mr. Don's name, it may be called Rosa sempervirens ca- 

 preolata. 



If a comparison be made of the Ayrshire Rose with Rosa 

 arvensis, in the state we usually find it, the differences be- 

 tween them are so numerous that there cannot be a doubt 

 about the propriety of separating them. But there are vari- 

 eties of Rosa arvensis in which some of these differences are 

 often less apparent, or altogether assimilated. For an 

 acquaintance with these varieties I am indebted to Mr. 

 William Borrer, with whom I have had an opportunity 

 of personally examining them in their native habitats in 

 Sussex. Rosa arvensis in accidental varieties has sported 

 very much, and has produced some particularly ornamental 

 plants, but those I am now about to mention are not single 

 productions, they are found growing wild in various places 

 unconnected with each other. Of these the first variety has 

 the fruit slightly covered with setae, but does not differ in any 

 other character from the common Rosa arvensis. In the 

 second, the leaves are elongated, and sharply pointed, and 

 the fruit is also elongated. The third accords with the 

 second, except that the fruit of it is slightly hispid. The 

 lourth has many peculiarities, it is far less robust than the 

 common sort, having weak shoots, which are consequently 

 very pendant, and the joints do not grow straight but in a 

 zig-zag manner; the foliola are smaller, less rugose, flatter, 

 rather bending back, and shining on the upper surface ; be- 

 low they have the glaucousness of the type, though less of it, 



