ROSA SERICEA 
way into English gardens. It is the only four-petalled Rose in the 
whole genus. Lindley, having described it from dried specimens, 
probably never doubted that the flower presented the usual five divisions 
in calyx and corolla. In his description he does not refer to this strange 
anomaly, and his drawing gives a flower with five petals, although 
pentamerous flowers are extremely rare. 
Rosa sericea is thus described by Sir George Watt in an un- 
published diary of explorations in Manipur during 1882 : 
“A singularly beautiful rose, forming as it does small, erect, isolated bushes 
that frequent exposed grassy situations or low brushwoods. As a species it may be 
described as distributed throughout the temperate Himalaya, from the valley of the 
Ravi (in the far north-west) eastward to Sikkim, Bhutan, Manipur, Burma and China. 
“ The young twigs are round, smooth, green, with below each lateral bud a pair 
of large, flat, greatly prolonged (if they might not be called winged), brown, glistening 
prickles which end, on their upper half, in a sharp straight spine ; on the older twigs 
the prickles are round, straight, and very sharp, arising from a round basal expansion. 
The flowers borne on short lateral twigs, all along the secondary branches (one of 
the most striking features of the plant), are small, often less than one inch in diameter 
or, when exceptionally luxuriant, may be twice that size. Petals four, one large, 
another (opposite to it) small and the other two medium-sized, pure white or faintly 
tinged with pink toward the centre. Fruit the size of a pea, red and hairy. 
“ In Manipur this rose is exceedingly local and scarce ; it was met with by me 
in two localities only, viz. near the village of Langda (altitude 6,000 feet), and again 
above the village of Ching Sow (altitude 7,500 feet). In the western Himalaya it 
is exceedingly plentiful in the Baghi district, some 50 miles north of Simla, at an 
altitude of from 9,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea. It is thus met with at consider- 
ably lower altitudes in the east than in the west. 
“The extraordinary development of the prickles upon the young twigs led me 
at first to suspect that this was a quite distinct species from Rosa sericea Lindl. 
But I soon satisfied myself that the formation of flattened prickles was but a con- 
dition of growth, and in no way varietal in value. I have since repeatedly seen 
both conditions growing side by side and often from the same root. Certainly the 
Manipur plant seemed at first sight different (corresponding with var. pteracantha) 
from that which I had gathered in Sikkim and subsequently in Simla ; but although 
hopeful at first of being able to confirm the impression thus formed in the field, 
when I placed the specimens side by side in the herbarium I had reluctantly to 
agree with the opinion arrived at by most botanists, namely, that the numerous 
forms referred to this plant constitute but one species, though it seems probable that 
that species has been confused, through the inclusion of certain forms that more 
correctly belong to Rosa Webbiana Wall., which may be regarded as its representative 
west and north of the Ravi, and is in fact the most common rose in Pangi and 
Ladakh.” 
The most remarkable variety of Rosa sericea is var. pteracantha 
of Franchet, 1 which differs from the type in having remarkably dilated 
main prickles, decurrent, which, being translucent red on the young 
growths, give the plant an appearance of great beauty. This Rose 
was discovered in Yun-nan growing with the typical form, by the Abbe 
Delavay. Seeds were sent to M. de Vilmorin, who raised the plants 
now in cultivation. Another variety is Rosa demidata Franchet, 1 in 
which the stems are quite unarmed and the leaves glabrous beneath. 
1 Plant. Delavay., pars i. p. 220 (1889). 
164 
