ROSA ARVENSIS 
bracts lanceolate. Calyx-tube turbinate ; lobes short, ovate, not leaf-pointed, naked 
on the back, the outer with 1-2 small linear lobes. Petals large, pure white. Styles 
glabrous, forming a column considerably exserted beyond the very conical disc. 
Fruit small, subglobose or broadly ovoid, dark red, not ripening till October ; 
sepals deciduous. 
This well-marked species extends over central and southern 
Europe, from Spain and Britain to Greece. It is not mentioned by 
Turner or Lobel, but was noticed by Caspar Bauhin in 1623 1 under 
the name of “ Rosa arvensis Candida.” It is contained in Buddie’s 
herbarium, made late in the seventeenth century, and is called by Ray 2 
“ Rosa sylvestris altera minor flore albo nostra.” Linnaeus only knew 
it from Hudson’s description, and there is no specimen in his herbarium. 
This Rose, the most beautiful of all our English wild Roses, is 
readily known by its snow-white flowers, more cup-shaped than those of 
any of our other wild Roses, by its styles united in a smooth prominent 
column, surrounded by a halo of golden stamens, and by the rambling- 
habit of its long slender stems, which trail along the ground unless 
they encounter some object which encourages the branches to ascend. 
It is widely distributed throughout England, and is abundant in the 
southern counties, becoming scarcer as it goes north, and, though it 
ranges through Cheviotland to the Grampians, it is very rare north of 
the Tweed. With its wreaths of snowy bloom, its deep green foliage 
and purple, glaucous stems, it is one of the most beautiful objects of 
our English hedgerows at midsummer. 
The Ayrshire Roses, amongst the most popular of our climbing 
Roses, originated from Rosa arvensis . Among them are Queen of the 
Belgians , A lice Gray , Dundee Rambler, and many others very generally 
grown for wreathing arches and pillars and covering walls. They are 
not only beautiful, but have the additional advantages of being abso- 
lutely bardy, and at the same time the strongest growing and most 
floriferous of all our garden Roses. 
Rosa arvensis has also made many good natural hybrids with 
Rosa gallica L., Rosa canina L. and others. At Charbonnieres, near 
Lyons, there is a whole series of these interesting hybrids which have 
been named and described by the Abbe Boullu and others. 
This Rose is figured by Andrews (vol. i. t. 1). 
1 Pinax , p. 484. 2 Historia , vol. ii. p. 1471 (1688). 
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