174 



THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 



The following touch of rural nature is 

 unequalled for truthfulness and sim- 

 plicity :— - 



" A rose-bud by my early walk 

 Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, 

 Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, 



All on a dewy morning. 

 Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 

 In a' its crimson glory spread, 

 And drooping rich the dewy head, 



It scents the early morning." 



Herrick also graphically pictures the 

 evanescent character of the blossoms : 



" Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, 



Old time is still a-flying, 

 And the same flower that smiles to-day, 



To-morrow will be dying." 



The well-known couplet — 



" The rose has but a summer's reign, 

 The daisy never dies," — 



alludes to the brief blooming season of 

 the rose, for, in point of fact^ it is one 

 of the longest lived plants. Docu- 

 mentary evidence proves that the 

 famous rose-tree in the church of 

 Hildersheim, in Germany, is over one 

 thousand years old, and it is still flour- 

 ishing. The name Eosa has been 

 traced through the Greek and Celtic 

 to a root rhos or rhodd, meaning red 

 or ruddy, although the tradition is that 

 the primeval roses were all white, and 

 various legends account for the pre- 

 vaihng red ones. 



" 'Tis said as Cupid danced among 



The gods he down the nectar flung, 



Which on the white rose being shed 

 Made it for ever after red." 

 Another tradition is that Christ's crown 

 of thorns was made of rose briars, and 

 the blood-drops that fell from his brow 



sprung up as red roses. It is an old 

 behef that roses will spring up where 

 blood has been shed, thus in the old 

 legendary ballad of fair Margaret and 

 sweet William we are told, — 

 " And out of her bosom there sprang a red 

 rose. 



And out of her lover's a briar." 

 Such silly stories only serve to excite 

 a smile at the credulity of our ances- 

 tors. Science has now learned to take 

 instant advantage of any tendency to 

 variation in nature, and the first white 

 moss-rose which appeared as a "sport'' 

 in the grounds of a nurseryman near 

 London realised over a thousand pounds 

 to the fortunate possessor. And that 

 roses may be grown for profit as well as 

 pleasure, it is a known fact tjiat during 

 a recent season fifty pounds was received 

 for blooms cut off a single tree. The 

 common name of briar is from the 

 Anglo-Saxon hraVj and was applied to 

 those plants which grew on waste 

 lands, although it is now restricted to 

 the prickly wild rose and bramble. 

 The so-called briar-root pipes are man- 

 ufactured from the wood of a species 

 of heath which grows on the northern 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and the 

 rosewood of commerce is produced by 

 a tree belonging to Leguminosse. The 

 dog-rose {R. canina) gets its trivial 

 name from its universal abundance, 

 being like many other things less 

 valued because so common. I have 

 seen it stated that dogs delight to de- 

 vour the fruit of this rose, and hence 



