BOTANICAL CLASSIFICATION. 



9 



also that of Carthage, which bloomed in winter. Unfor- 

 tunately, all that we find in his works on this subject is, 

 generally, very obscure, and it is difficult to compare many 

 he has described with those known at the present day. 



Although there are no double wild roses known at the 

 present day, either in Europe or in this country, yet, as 

 other flowers have been found double in a wild state, it is 

 not impossible that some of the ancient varieties bore 

 double flowers in their native condition in the fields. Such 

 may have been the Centifolias^ mentioned by Pliny and 

 Theophrastus, as growing upon Mount Panga, and those 

 which, at a still earlier period, according to Herodotus, 

 grew wild in Macedonia, near the ancient gardens of 

 Midas. 



The poverty in description which we have observed in 

 ancient writings, and their comparatively small number 

 of species, extends also to a much later day. In a little 

 treatise published in France in 1536, and entitled De re 

 Horteyisis JLihelluo^ there afe but four species mentioned, 

 and scarcely anything concerning their culture. An 

 Italian work published in 1563 mentions only eight spe- 

 cies. In the Florilegium of Sweet, a folio volume printed 

 at Frankfort in 1612, are ten very coarse representations 

 of roses, but with no indication of their names. 



In the Paradisus Terrestris of Parkinson, a folio volume 

 printed at London in 1629, some twenty-four kinds are 

 mentioned. Some of them are represented by figures in 

 wood, which are very coarse, and scarcely allow recogni- 

 tion of their species. In the Jardinier ITolIando is ^ print- 

 ed at Amsterdam in 1669, are found but fourteen species 

 of roses, very vaguely described, with scarcely anything - 

 on culture. 



The first work which treated of roses with any degree 

 of method is that of La Quintyne, published at Paris in 

 1690, and yet its details of the diSerent species and varie- 

 ties do not occupy more than a page and a half, while 

 1* 



