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PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
England, but it was familiar to Chaucer— 
“ The savour of the Roses swote 
Me smote right to the herte rote. 
As I hadde alle embawmed be. 
• • o • 
Of Roses there were grete wone, 
So faire were never in Rone,” 
i. e. in Provence, at the mouth of the Rhone. For beauty in 
shape and exquisite fragrance, I consider this Rose to be still 
unrivalled; but it is not a fashionable Rose, and is usually 
found in cottage gardens, or perhaps in some neglected part of 
gardens of more pretensions. I believe it is considered too 
loose in shape to satisfy the floral critics of exhibition flowers, 
and it is only a summer Rose, and so contrasts unfavourably 
with the Hybrid Perpetuals. Still, it is a delightful Rose, 
delightful to the eye, delightful for its fragrance, and most 
delightful from its associations. 
The White Rose of York (No. 20) has never been satisfac¬ 
torily identified. It was clearly a cultivated Rose, and by 
some is supposed to have been only the wild White Rose 
(R. arvensis ) grown in a garden. But it is very likely to have 
been the Rosa alba , which was a favourite in English gardens 
in Shakespeare’s time, and was very probably introduced long 
before his time, for it is the double variety of the wild White 
Rose, and Gerard says of it: “The double White Rose doth 
grow wild in many hedges of Lancashire in great abundance, 
even as Briers do with us in these southerly parts, especially 
in a place of the countrey called Leyland, and in a place called 
Roughford, not far from Latham.” It was, therefore, not a 
new gardener’s plant in his time, as has been often stated. 
I have little doubt that this is the White Rose of York; it is 
not the R. alba of Dr. Lindley’s monograph, but the double 
variety of the British R. arvensis. 
The White Rose has a very ancient interest for Englishmen, 
for “long before the brawl in the Temple Gardens, the flower 
had been connected with one of the most ancient names of 
our island. The elder Pliny, in discussing the etymology of 
