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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



biological point of view. Cultivators have taken hold of plastic 

 wild types, and working at them patiently through the long cen- 

 turies, have moulded them by gradual stages of transition till in 

 many cases they have assumed forms very remote from the wild 

 originals. I do not think that anything in flower-development 

 can well be more striking and wonderful than the change that 

 has been wrought in the Rose. Three-quarters of the cultivated 

 Roses we see in this exhibition have been evolved by horticulture 

 out of two wild types. The Rose which cultivators mainly worked 

 at up to the end of the last century, the Rose of the classical and 

 mediaeval poets and painters, was Bosa gallica. This grows wild 

 abundantly in the south of Europe, and from this originated the 

 French Roses, the Damask Roses, the Provence Roses, and the 

 Pompons, and by hybridisation with the Dog Rose, the well-known 

 Bosa alba, and probably also Bosa centifolia. I have had copies 

 made for exhibition of the rough coloured drawings of the cultivated 

 Roses contained in the 1620 edition of Swertius' "Florilegium." 

 Just a hundred years ago, in 1789, Bosa indica was introduced 

 from China, and this brought about in Rose cultivation as great a 

 change as the French revolution caused in matters social and 

 political. From Bosa indica have sprung the Monthly Roses, the 

 Tea Roses, the Fairy Roses, and by hybridisation, the Bourbons, 

 Boursaults, and Noisettes. From these two t}-pes, gallica and 

 indica, have sprung at least three-quarters of the garden Roses. 

 I have had two drawings made to show the wild originals of the 

 two species, and I ask you to get these two types well fixed in 

 your minds. I should not like anyone to go away from this Con- 

 ference without realising fully and clearly what the labours of 

 cultivators of generations past and present have done for us in 

 developing the myriad beautiful forms of this " queen of flowers " 

 which we now see around us. It is only very lately that we have 

 received at Kew, for the first time, wild specimens of Bosa indica, 

 gathered by our indefatigable correspondent, Dr. Henry, who 

 during the last few years has sent us many thousand species of 

 plants from the western provinces of China, a large number of 

 which have proved entirely new to science. I am well aware 

 that what Mr. Paul and our other rosarians are wanting to 

 ascertain from the botanists at this Conference, is, which other of 

 the wild types are most suitable for them to work upon in order 

 to develop fine new garden forms. This is a very interesting 



