ROSA SPINOSISSIMA 
given another name. Neither Cre[)in nor Deseglise was disposed to 
accept the spiiiosissiJJKJ ; Deseglise considered that it would lead 
to confusion over Bauhin and d'ournefort’s synonyms. The modern 
tendenc}^ is to ap[)ly the name Rosa pinipinellifolia to the form with 
smooth peduncles, and Rosa spinosissiina to that with hispid-glandular 
peduncles ; but the latter, being the older name, has priority among 
botanists. I propose, however, to call the form with smooth peduncles 
Rosa spinosissima, \\ar. piiupinellifolia. It has not previously been 
reduced to a variety by any author, but it deserves no higher rank. 
Although this Rose has been the cause of so much controversy, 
it is the smallest wild Rose known, rarely exceeding a foot or eighteen 
inches in height in its wild state. It is one of the prettiest of our native 
flowering shrubs. It is found all round Great Britain, but often with 
great intervals between different localities, and almost everywhere it 
seems to like to be within the influence of the sea. On the continent, 
however, it is otherwise, since the Abbe Coste in his Flore de la 
France gives as its locality “ Europe — surtout centrale.” 
A variegated pink and white form of Rosa spinosissiina was 
described and figured by Sir Robert Sibbald, under the name of Rosa 
Cipliiana} His drawing was made from plants found wild on his 
property of Kippis, in Perthshire. Mrs. Delany, in her beautiful 
collection of mosaic flowers now in the British Museum, has a charm- 
ing representation of the Ciphian Rose made at Bulstrode in 1775. 
The late Rev. C. Wolley-Dod, of Edge Hall, Cheshire, found near 
Llandudno a pmk-flowered form which comes true from seed, and 
maintains its colour and character. Major Wolley-Dod has recentl}^ 
found the same form in Kent. W. Koch, in his Synopsis,^ mentions 
a var. rosea, with which the Llandudno and Kent forms agree. 
Of the two plates the first Rosa spinosissiina L., that is, 
the form of the species with hispid peduncles, but the larger prickles are 
as a rule longer and more marked off from the lesser armature ; the 
foliage is usually darker and more bluish green, more often with nine 
leaflets, and the petals smaller and of a less pronounced yellow than the 
plate shows. The other plate shows a cultivated form frequently found 
m P'rench gardens. 
' Scotia Illiistrata, pt. 2, p. 46, t. 2 (1684). 
' Vol. ii. p. 194 (1837). 
249 
