28 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
good pollen was found and that some of the styles appeared to be 
normal and not petaloid, the result is so far unexpected. From the 
genetic point of view the sterility of the old Moss-Rose is a serious 
disadvantage, but this difficulty is not insuperable, as will be seen 
later. A full discussion of this important question of sterility must be 
deferred for a time, and for the present we simply record the fact. 
History of the old Cabbage-Rose. (R. centifolia L.) 
The old Cabbage-Rose has been freely cultivated in European 
fields and gardens for more than 2,000 years. About 450 B.C. Herodotus 
observes that the Roses growing in Macedonia, near the gardens of 
Midas, have sixty petals, and are the most fragrant in the world. 
This is a very neat description of the Cabbage-Rose, and at the same 
time a critical one, because it is difficult to conceive how such a de- 
scription can be applied to any other known species of Rosa. A century 
later Theophrastus, the first historian of the Rose, mentions the 
Roses with a hundred petals, and calls them ' Centifolia.' In the first 
century Pliny, who devotes a whole chapter to Roses, repeats the 
observations of Theophrastus, and adds that the ' Rosa Centifolia ' 
grows at Campania in Italy, and near Philippi, a city in Greece 
(Macedonia) . He also states that these Centifolia Roses grow naturally 
on Mount Pangaeus close by, with a hundred leaves but small, and 
when transplanted into richer soil do thrive mightily, and prove to be 
much fairer than those growing on the mountain ; all of which seems 
quite natural. From other classic authors we learn that vast numbers 
of Rose petals were used by the Greeks and Romans for their decora- 
tions and festivities, and it is reasonable to suppose that the Cabbage- 
Rose with its hundred petals and delicious fragrance was cultivated 
for this purpose in the fields of Italy, Greece, and Macedonia. In 
these circumstances it does not necessarily follow that the Cabbage- 
Rose is a true native of the South of Europe, as many of the early 
authorities conclude (Smith, 1815) ; on the other hand, it appears 
more probable, as Lindley (1820) believed, that the Cabbage-Rose 
was introduced into Europe from Asia at a remote period. As a 
matter of fact, early in the nineteenth century Bieberstein (1808) found 
the Cabbage-Rose growing apparently wild on the Eastern side of the 
Caucasus, on the borders of Armenia and Persia. Rau (1816) states 
that it is a native of Northern Persia, and Boissier (1872) gives the 
habitat as Eastern Caucasus, while according to Loureiro (1790) it is 
a native of China. 
Notwithstanding these records we are inclined to believe that 
the Cabbage-Rose has been cultivated in the fields and gardens of Asia 
from time immemorial, and that its native country can only be sur- 
mised. The fact of its sterility suggests an origin under cultivation, 
and it is worthy of note that R. centifolia L. does not "stool" so 
freely as R. gallica L., nor does it root so well from cuttings and layers 
as R. damascena Mill., so that its chances of survival and increase in 
a wild state would be very small. The fact that the habitats given 
