4 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



through gullies and shaded woods. Near the summit it is bare and 

 open and the sun beats down upon hardbaked rocks. We passed by 

 obelisks and grass-grown trenches marking the spot where, in 1878, 

 terrific battles took place between the Bulgarians combined with the 

 Russians against the Turks ; one battle lasted seven days. In the end 

 the Turks were defeated and Bulgaria gained her independence. 



Several species of Cytisus are found on the Shipka Pass, the most 

 noteworthy of which is C. leucanthus, or C. schipkaensis as it is some- 

 times called. Along a shady beechwood path we passed by a cliff 

 covered with Haberlea rhodopensis (fig. 2) in company with Asplenium 

 Ceterach. The Haberlea was in full flower, some of the larger tufts 

 being 2 or 3 feet across, and it was a glorious sight. We luckily 

 found a tuft with almost white flowers. Higher up the cliff, where 

 the shade was absent, the leaves were burnt and shrivelled, and yet 

 the plant manages to exist. There also we found the wild Lilac. 



Leaving Gabrovski we drove through the Shipka village along the 

 Valley of the Roses to Kasanlik, where the attar of roses is made. 

 Kasanlik lies on the plain of Thrace, and, like many other of the 

 Bulgarian plains, is absolutely flat with high mountain ranges rising 

 precipitously around. The valleys give the impression of dried-up 

 lakes. 



The world's chief supply of attar of roses comes from this district, 

 for it is the biggest rose-garden known, stretching 80 miles with nearly 

 170 villages devoted to the culture of roses. The soil is sandy and 

 porous, but well watered by numerous streams. The rose which is 

 grown for the attar is a variety of the Red Damask Rose (Rosa damascena 

 trigintipetala). Often around a plantation is a single or double row 

 of a white rose, a form of R. alba. The rose bushes are grown in rows, 

 forming hedges about 100 yards long and 6 feet apart in the rows. 

 New plantations are formed by cutting down the old stumps and 

 dividing them, usually in October or November. A plantation will 

 be in its prime five years after planting and, if carefully tended, will 

 last fifteen to twenty years. Rose-picking takes place every day from 

 about the middle of May to the middle of June, and the flowers are 

 gathered, calyx and all, early in the morning before the sun shines 

 upon them, otherwise they yield much less attar. A hectare (2| acres) 

 produces about three million flowers, but it takes about 100,000 

 flowers to make an ounce of attar. When picked the roses are taken 

 direct to a covered shed where stills are at work. A still consists of 

 a copper alembic, about 4 feet high, into which the roses are put. 

 It rests on a brick furnace, and has a mushroom-shaped head, and from 

 it a cooling tube passes into a trough of running water. Under the 

 cooling tube a flask collects the distilled rosewater. This rosewater 

 is again distilled and the attar collects on the top in the form of a 

 yellow, oily liquid. 



Passing vineyards here and there, and sampling some wonderful 

 fine black cherries and mulberries, we drove along the Kasanlik plain 

 to Stara Zagora, seeing many strange birds, also the girl rose-pickers 



