ROSA XANTHINA 
except having* no setae and double flowers the colour of Rosa sidfureay 
Crepin ^ states that although he did not himself see the figure, this 
brief description enabled him to identify it with a yellow rose which 
he had described in his Primitiae^ and which is cultivated at Pekin, 
the sinHe form beine found in the mountains of northern China. 
The stems and branches of the double form are either unarmed or 
ha\^e slender, straight, purplish prickles, not intermixed, as in Rosa 
spinosissima, with setae ; the flowering branches are short and bear 
the flowers at reofular intervals. The Rose seemed to him to be 
identical with Rosa platyacantha Schrenk, except that the latter was 
said to have white petals. Afterwards he received from Franchet 
two specimens of yellow Roses which had been collected b}' the Abbe 
David in Mongolia, one at Ta-Tsin-Chan and the other at Toumet, 
Sartchy, and which were identical with a Rose found by M. Przcwalski 
on the Alaskan mountains and referred by Crepm to Schrenk’s type. 
This Rose Crepin had at first believed to be white, but on examining 
it more closely he discovered that the flowers were )'ellow, so that it 
seemed reasonable to assume that Rosa platyacantha had also }'ellow 
flowers. Whether or no the Rose of Pekin is identical with Schrenk’s 
type, there seems little doubt that it is really the Rosa xanthina of 
Lindley, to which likewise may be referred the Rose collected by the 
Abbe David and by M. Przcwalski. This discovery was due to 
Franchet, who, when sending the two specimens to Crepm, asked if 
they were not the Rosa xanthina of Lindley. Crepm had curiously 
enough lost sight of the Rose which Lindley had determined upon 
the evidence of a single figure. 
Rosa Rcae of Aitchison is the Afghan form of Rosa xanthina 
and only differs from the type in its much smaller flowers and less 
robust prickles. It was collected by Dr. J. F. T. Aitchison, who 
went out to Afghanistan with the troops and served through the 
Afghan war, and by whom it was described in the Journal of the 
Linnean Society. He found it growing in abundance froiu Habibkalla 
as far as Ahkhel, where, with Aniygdalus cburnca Spach, it forms the 
major part of the vegetation which co\’ers the rockv hills of the district 
of Hariab. This species is still rare in cultivation m England, but is 
perfectly hardy. 
* Fhre des Serres et des Jardins de [Europe (1880), vol. xxiii. pp. 104-5. 
