GARDEN CLASSIFICATION". 



27 



CHAPTER II. 

 GARDEN CLASSIFICATIOK 



The varieties of a plant are, by Botanists, designated 

 by names intended to convey an idea of certain charac- 

 teristics, — the form and consistency of the leaves, the ar- 

 rangement, number, size, and color of the flowers, seed- 

 vessels, etc. The varieties of roses, however, have so few 

 distinct characteristics, that florists find it difficult to 

 give any name expressive of the very slight shades of dif- 

 ference in the color or form of the flower. Fanciful names 

 have therefore been chosen, indiscriminately, according to 

 the taste of the grower ; and we thus find classed, in 

 brotherly nearness, ISTapoleon and Wellington, Queen 

 Victoria and Louis Philippe, Othello and Wilberforce, 

 with many others. Any half-dozen English or French 

 rose growers may give the name of their favorite Welling- 

 ton or IsTapoleon to a rose raised by each of them, and en- 

 tirely different in form and color from the other five 

 bearing the same name. Thus has arisen the great confu- 

 sion in rose nomenclature. 



A still greater difficulty and confusion, however, exists 

 in the classification adopted by the various English and 

 French rose growers. By these, classes are multiplied 

 and roses placed in them without sufficient attention to 

 their distinctive characters ; these are subsequently 

 changed to other classes, to the utter confusion of those 

 who are really desirous of obtaining some knowledge of 

 the respective varieties. Even Rivers, the most correct 

 of them all, has in several catalogues the same rose in as 

 many different classes, and his book may perhaps place 

 it in another. He thus comments upon thi-s constant 

 change ; 



