DECIDUOUS SHRUBS. 
497 
THE ROSE. J^osa. 
Du Hamel observes that “Nature 
appears scarcely to have placed any 
limit between the different species of 
the rose ; and, if it is already very 
difficult to define the wild species, 
which have not yet been modified by 
culture, it is almost impossible to 
refer to their original type the numer- 
ous varieties which culture has made 
in the flowers of species already so 
nearly resembling each other.” To 
the ordinary amateur the great num- 
ber of divisions among cultivated 
roses into classes and sub-classes, 
by which professional florists en- 
deavor to facilitate a knowledge of 
the different sorts of roses, some- 
times serves rather to make the 
confusion worse confounded. The distinctions which seem simple 
enough, and quite necessary to professional florists, who have exam- 
ples of all sorts constantly before their eyes, is a bewildering mass 
of floral lore, quite embarrassing to the amateurs for whom one 
or two dozen of the best varieties of roses will do as well as a 
thousand. The author of a recent horticultural work, after enumer- 
ating we know not how many classes of roses, closes the chapter 
by condensing the results of his experience into a “ select list ” 
of upwards of two hundred varieties ! A generosity scarcely ex- 
ceeded by the nursery catalogues. 
A plan now adopted by many nurserymen, and recommended 
by Francis Parkman in his excellent treatise entitled “The Book 
of Roses,” is to arrange roses in two great divisions, viz ; the first 
division embracing all roses, whether hardy or tender, which bloom 
in June, and not afterwards ; the second division embracing all 
which bloom more than once in a season. 
Fig. i6<. 
32 
