ROSA EGLANTERIA 
This species is the only British wild Rose which has always been 
permitted to rank as a garden plant ; its compact habit and delicious 
fragrance have from very early days assured it a welcome place in 
English gardens. It is a vigorous and hardy Rose, and there are 
some well-known instances of its remarkable longevity. Some of them, 
of course, must be taken with reservation, but even so there is ample 
proof that the Sweet Briar under favourable conditions will live to a 
very considerable age. A large bush growing in a Touraine garden 
was cut down some sixty years since and upon the rings being counted 
they were found to number something like a hundred and twenty ; the 
plant had shown no signs whatever of deterioration, and the thick 
gnarled stems were perfectly sound. In the garden of an old castle in 
Saxony there was a bush growing in a shady moist corner and reaching 
the height of some twenty feet, and it was still well furnished with leaves 
and blossomed and bore fruit in profusion. This plant was locally 
believed to have been growing there when Charlemagne’s third son 
Louis was crowned Emperor of the W est at Aix-la-Chapelle in a.d. 814! 
Woods found that Sweet Briar fruit tasted mealy and insipid, 
whereas the fruit of its near relative Rosa micrantha Smith is slightly 
acid and pleasant to the taste. Although the fragrance from the 
Eglantine is so exquisite either after a shower of rain or when the 
leaves are touched, the water distilled from them yields a perfume far 
from agreeable unless mixed with some other ingredient. 
In an old book of recipes, directions are given for preparing and 
candying the young shoots, which thus treated became a sweetmeat 
much appreciated in the days when home-made wines and all manner 
of conserves and pot-pourri were prepared in all English homes of 
any pretension, often enough by the daughters of the house, who 
prided themselves upon their knowledge and proficiency in such 
homely arts. 
Rosa Eglanteria has several varieties which have been described 
under specific names, eg. Rosa comosa Rip., Rosa echinocarpa Rip., 
Rosa umbellata Leers, Rosa rotundifolia Reichb., etc. There is a 
fine series of figures of the garden forms in Andrews’ Roses , t. 1 09-1 20 
(1828). 
The plate represents that charming Sweet Briar “ Janet’s Pride,” 
which first suggested to the late Lord Penzance the possibility of 
working upon the Sweet Briar, the result of which produced the 
beautiful race known as the Penzance Briars. On the authority of 
the late Rev. C. Wolley Dod, of Edge Hall, “Janet’s Pride” was 
found growing in a Cheshire lane-side, apparently far from garden 
influence. 
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