ROSA MUSCOSA. THE MOSS ROSE. 
Class XII. ICOSANDRIA. Order III. POLYGAMIA. 
Natural Order, RQSACE^E. THE ROSE TRIBE. 
Calyx 4-or 5 lobed, with a disk either lining the tube or surrounding the orifice ; the fifth lobe next the 
axis. Stamens indefinite, arising from the calyx, just within the petals, in cestivation curved inwards, 
anthers innate, 2 celled, bursting longitudinally. Ovaries superior, either solitary or several, 1 celled, 
sometimes cohering into a plurilocular pistillum ; ovula 2, or more, suspended, very rarely erect ; styles 
lateral; stigmata usually simple, and emarginate on one side. Fruit either 1 seeded nuts, or acini, or follicles 
containing several seeds. Seeds suspended, rarely ascending. Embryo straight, with a taper short radicle 
pointing to the hilum, and flat cotyledons. Albumen usually almost obliterated when the seeds are ripe ; if 
present, fleshy. — Herbaceous plants or shrubs. Leaves simple or compound, alternate, with 2 stipula at their 
base. Calyx and peduncles mossy. The Moss Rose is either red or white and always very double. 
“My Love 5 '’ says a popular song, “is like the red, red rose;” and a very good simile it is. The rose 
has ever been the emblem of youth, beauty, and freshness; and if a poet would describe the enchanting 
glow upon the cheek of his mistress, he speaks of the rosy flush that seems transferred from the garden to 
her skin. The rose too, is the emblem of pleasure, and as in this world, enjoyment is too apt to leave a 
sting behind, so the rose, when it withers, leaves a thorn to increase our regret for its loss 
See for a while its garden-bed I Return — alas ! the rose has fled, 
The fragrant rose adorn; | Nor left aught but a thorn. From, the Greek Anthologia. 
Nay, the thorns maybe felt before the roses have withered ; or, in the language of the most philosophic 
of Roman poets, 
“ Medio defonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat .” 
“From the midst of the fountain of delights, there arises something bitter, to torment one amid the 
flowers themselves.” 
The transient splendour of the rose is also a fit emblem of beauty and virtue too soon called away from 
the world which they graced : — 
Elle etait de ce monde ou les plus belles choses I Et rose elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses, 
Ont le pire destin ; | L’ espace d’un matin. Malherbe. 
She belonged to this world, where the sweetest and fairest 
Are ill-fortune’s surest prey ; 
Rose she was, and she lived like a rose of the rarest, 
The space of one single day. 
Here is another poem more generally known, in which the rose again figures as the image of unresisting 
sweetness and tenderness. 
The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, 
Which Mary to Anna conveyed, 
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, 
And weighed down its beautiful head. 
The cups were all filled, and the leaves were all wet, 
And it seemed to a fanciful view, 
To weep for the buds it had left with regret 
On the flourishing bush where it grew. 
I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 
For a nosegay so dripping and drowned, 
And swung it rudely, too rudely alas ! 
I snapped it, it fell to the ground. 
“And such,” — I exclaimed, “is the pitiless part, 
Some act by the delicate mind, 
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart, 
Already to sorrow resigned. 
This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, 
Might have bloomed with its owner awhile, 
And the tear that is wiped with a little address, 
May be followed perhaps by a smile.” Cowper. 
In the following legend by Korner, the rose seems to be the emblem of joyous and triumphant purity. 
Among the earlier Christian converts was St. Dorothy, a Greek maiden, who sedulously cultivated her garden, 
and while blessed with a pious and child-like sportiveness, faith increased in her heart, like pure gold. 
One night this dream was vouchsafed to her. A bright angel descended, with three blooming roses in his 
radiant hand, extended them to her with a friendly look, gave her the kiss of consecration, and then flew 
home to heaven. When the maiden awoke, and found the roses on her bosom, she saw that the dream was 
from above, and her heart glowed with a holy longing to attain the heavenly garden. Two days passed 
away, but when the third morning burst forth, the roses began to fade. 
We will give the last stanza in the original: — 
Und der Engel erscheint, als der vierte graut, 
Im lichten Brautigamskleide, 
Und tragt die Rosen, und triigt die Braut, 
Hinauf in aen Garten der Freude. 
And the angel appears, as the fourth morn grows gray, 
In his radiant bridal vest, 
And carries the bride and the roses away, 
To the garden where dwell the blest 
