26 



PARSONS ON THE EOSE, 



lanceolate, sparingly serrated, approximate. Stipules 

 bristle-like, scarcely attached to the petiole, rather glossy, 

 deciduous. Flowei's in umbel-like corymbs, numerous, 

 very double, sweet-scented, nodding. Tube of the calyx 

 a little dilated at the tip. jFruit globose, black. A native 

 of China. A climbing shrub, flowering in June and July. 



Description^ etc. — This is an exceedingly beautiful and 

 very remarkable kind of rose; the flowers being small, 

 round, and very double, on long peduncles, and resembling 

 in form the flowers of the double French cherry, or that of 

 a small ranunculus, more than those of the generality of 

 roses. The flowers of BanJcsioe alba are remarkably 

 fragrant, the scent strongly resembling that of violets. 



Thunberg speaks of the Hosa rugosa as growing in 

 China and Japan, being extensively cultivated in the gar- 

 dens of those countries, and producing flowers of a pale 

 red or pure white. The original plant is of a deep pur- 

 ple color. Siebold, in his treatise on the flowers of Japan, 

 says that this rose had been already cultivated in China 

 about eleven hundred years, and that the ladies of the 

 Court, under the dynasty of Long, prepared a very choice 

 pot-pourri by mixing its petals with musk and camphor. 



More than one hundred distinct species are mentioned 

 by botanists, in addition to those we have enumerated, 

 but none of very marked characters or much known. 



