THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
IGl 
TELLOW ROSES. 
Coloured Illustration of Perle de Lyon.) 
HERE are more yellow flowers than of any other colour, 
and yet we prize yellow roses above all other roses, 
and take considerable care to insure their plentiful 
production and perfect development. The Hue rose is 
at present a “ fancy flower,” a thing of the imagination, 
hoped for, and indeed expected by rosarians wlio take superficial 
views of the workings of nature, but by such as have observed with 
intelligent eyes, it is generally agreed that there is no reasonable 
prospect of the production of a blue rose at any time or anywhere 
except in the dream of an enthusiast. Our friend, Mr. W. D. Prior, 
astonished the world once on a time by announcing his- possession of 
a glorious rose of royal blue, but we soon discovered that he had 
seen it with the mind’s eye only as — 
“ a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.” 
But the yellow rose is a reality, and one of the most agreeable 
amongst the many realities of the rose garden. It is not the 
Noisette or the Tea-scented groups only that furnish us with yellow 
flowers, but several other families dispute with these regal roses for 
favour with those who love “ cups of gold,” and hence a chapter on 
yellow roses must range rather wide in the selection of examples. 
Nor is the subject insusceptible of illustration from dreams and 
lancies, for there are those who hope for yellow moss roses and 
yellow perpetuals, and not a few who believe that such things really 
exist. As a matter of fact, our lively friends of the flowery per- 
suasion on the other side of the channel, have actually announced 
yellow moss and perpetual roses as ready for confiding purchasers, 
but it has not been our good fortune to see any of them in flower, 
and for the present we do not believe in their existence. That, 
hypothetically, they are to be desired there can be no question. A 
yellow moss rose of good quality would startle civilized society out 
of its accustomed propriety, and a yellow perpetual to flower all the 
summer long in the open ground, and make sheets of golden bloom 
in the proper rose season in the early days of July, would be the 
greatest possible “acquisition” to the rose garden that has ever 
been accomplished, not excluding the introduction of the honour- 
able, puissant, redoubtable, heroic, and all-conquering Marechal 
Niel. Now, to speak for ourselves, we do not expect ever to see a 
blue rose, and we have not yet seen a yellow moss or a yellow 
))erpetual. But in the possibility of the last two we fully believe, 
and therefore feel bound to urge on all those choice spirits whose 
delight it is to raise floral novelties, the propriety of laboivring with 
a view to secure such desirable additions to the rose catalogue. It 
may contribute towards this happy end, and at the same time pro- 
mote the enjoyment of yellow roses everywhere, if we now ofi'cr a 
June. 
