smooth, or slightly hairy; calyx segments pinnate, and not remaining attached to the fruit; styles distinct. A number of varieties of this shrub are found; in one, the leaflets are keeled, and the serratures compound; in others, they are flat, and are more or less hairy. These have by various writers been described as distinct species. This is, above all others, the wilding rose of England, for it is common almost everywhere, its deep pink or delicate blush-coloured young roses and buds gleaming among the bright sprays of leaflets, and shedding on green lane and sunny bank, or shady wood, their sweet and rose-like odour. As the flowers expand fully, they become whiter. Few who have passed their early days in the country but can remember spots and occupations such as Clare describes, when alluding to a country maiden :—

"She eager scrambled the dog-rose to get,

And woodbine flowers at every bush she met;
The cowslip blossom, with its ruddy streak,
Would tempt her furlongs from the path to seek;
And gay long purple, with its tufty spike,
She'd wade o'er shoes to reach it in the dyke;
And oft was scratching through the briary woods
For tempting cuckoo-flowers and violet-buds."

Some writers think that the reason why this pretty wilding rose was called by our fathers Dog-rose, is that all the wild roses or briars were termed by the Greeks Cynorhodon, because the root was supposed to cure the bite of a mad dog. The Latins, who had the same notion respecting this root, called the wild rose Canina, and hence our commonest rose received this name. Another of its names, the Canker Rose, was, however, doubtless expressive of contempt, and was most likely given to this flower because of its inferiority in size and odour to the garden rose. In this contempt the poets of those days fully shared. Shakspeare in more places than one designates it thus :

"The rose looks fair, but fairer it we deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live;
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;

But (for their virtue only is their show)

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made."

Notwithstanding this opinion, however, this Rose is not only beautiful, but even slightly fragrant. It is still called Canker Rose in Devonshire, and probably its old name lingers in the villages of some other counties. The blossom is generally over by July, but occasionally a few stray roses may appear on the bush in autumn, a circumstance which, in former times, was deemed a certain "signe of an insuing plague."

The Dog-rose affords several varieties of garden roses, and some rose-trees of this species attain a great age, the stems acquiring considerable thickness. Many of our hardy rose plants are long-lived, though we have none which is like that wild rose-tree which Humboldt mentions as growing in the crypt of the Cathedral at Hildersheim, said to be a thousand years old; though this writer adds, that it is the root only, and not the stem, which is proved by accurate and trustworthy original documents to be eight centuries old. "A legend," he says, "connects this rose-tree with a vow made by the first founder of the Cathedral, Ludwig the Pious; and an original document of the eleventh century says, that when the Bishop Hezilio rebuilt the Cathedral, which had been burnt down, he enclosed

the roots of a rose-tree within a vault which still exists, raised upon this vault the crypt, which was consecrated in 1061, and spread out the branches of the rosetree on the walls. The stem, now living, is about twenty-six feet and a half high, and about two inches thick, and the outspread branches cover about thirtytwo feet of the external wall of the eastern crypt; it is doubtless of considerable antiquity, and well deserving of the celebrity which it has gained throughout Germany."

When the artist represents the floral badge of our country, he does not often depict our native hedge-rose, for time and custom have sanctioned the practice of choosing one of those full roses, whose petals have been increased in number by culture, or which are the product of other lands. But the rose is always beautiful everywhere, although the blossoms of Eastern countries and of Southern Europe far exceed ours in hue and fragrance. In Greece the lovely and fragrant rose, known in England as the Cabbage-rose, is abundant, and it won for the Isle of Rhodes its name, while in some countries larger, though not sweeter, roses are to be found than these. Meyen tells of some thorny rose-bushes, growing in the forests of Missouri, above St. Louis, which ascend to the tops of the highest trees, and adorn them with countless red blossoms.

The Holy Land has beautiful wild roses still growing there; and though doubtless our translators of Scripture have sometimes rendered an original word by rose, which refers to some other flower, and though the rose of Sharon is probably a species of Cistus, yet there is no doubt that the Rose itself is occasionally referred to by the prophetic writers, and that when the writer of the "Wisdom of Solomon" said, "Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds before they be withered," he referred to the Queen of Flowers. Old Jewish authors tell us that Jerusalem was distinguished from all the other towns of Judæa, as by several other particulars, in having no gardens nor any planted trees, excepting some rose-bushes, which had existed there since the days of the ancient prophets. Beautiful wild roses have been seen at some parts of Palestine, expanding as early as the close of March; and Doubdan relates, that at the end of April roses were so plentiful in that land, that in some religious processions sacks full of rose-leaves were brought, from which handfuls were thrown on the people.

The rose seems to have been cultivated from the most remote time in our own country; and records tell that early in the thirteenth century King John sent a wreath of roses to his lady, "par amour," at Ditton. "Roses and lilies," says Mr. T. Hudson Turner, "were among the plants bought for the Royal garden at Westminster in 1276. The annual rendering of a rose is one of the commonest species of quit-rent named in ancient conveyances. The extent to which the cultivation of this flower had been carried between the fourteenth and sixteenth century may be estimated by the varieties enumerated by Lawson-they are red damask, velvet, double Provence rose; the sweet musk rose, double and single; and the double and single white rose. The Provence rose was probably first imported in the fifteenth century, when the occupation of France by the English may be conjectured to have caused the introduction of many fruits and flowers: the marriage of Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou may be regarded as likely to have brought the Provence rose to our climate."

It would be a vain attempt were we to seek to enumerate all the species and varieties of rose which in our own days render the garden so fragrant and beautiful, growing within the cottage palings, or decking the parterre of the palace, thriving best in the country, far away from smoke, of which they are very intolerant, some of them, as most of the yellow roses, refusing altogether to grow in town gardens. Every lover of flowers knows and prizes the old-fashioned

Provence, Cabbage, or hundred-leaved rose (Rosa centifolia), with its mossy varieties, and flowers of every hue, from white to a rich dark crimson; and Damask roses, and Cinnamon roses, Bourbon, Musk, and French roses, of which the well-known York and Lancaster rose is a variety-all these and many more are familiar plants in gardens. Several of these, like the white varieties of the Provence rose, are best when grown on a stock of the common dog-rose; and the numerous China roses, blooming almost all the year round, and peeping into the cottage window, or climbing up to the eaves, often tower above some of the roses which are but varieties of our common hedge species. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her beautiful little poem, "The Deserted Garden," alludes to the flower:

"Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,

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Bedropt with roses waxen white,
Well satisfied with dew and light,
And careless to be seen.

Long years ago it might befal,

When all the garden flowers were trim,
The grave old gardener prided him
On these the most of all.

"And lady stately over much,

That moved with a silken noise,

Blush'd near them, thinking of the voice
That liken'd her to such.

"Ah, little thought that lady proud

A child should watch her fair white rose;
When buried lay her whiter brows,
And silk was changed to shroud.
"Nor thought that gardener, full of scorns
For men unlearn'd and simple phrase,
A child would bring it all its praise
By creeping through the thorns."

All nations have prized the rose. In ancient days even warriors wore wreaths of its flowers, and the Greeks and Romans strewed its petals over their dishes on festive occasions. When Cleopatra invited Anthony to an entertainment, the royal apartments were covered with roses to a considerable depth. The Greeks and Romans planted the shrub on their tombs, or laid upon them its gathered flowers. Aubrey mentions the old custom existing at Oakley, in Surrey, of planting roses in churchyards over the remains of those who were betrothed, which was probably the relic of a Roman custom. But all old poets, and historians of all places, extol the flower, from the "Romaunt of the Rose," by our own Chaucer, or the "Ghulistan, the Region of Roses" of the East, or that Persian metaphysical poem mentioned by D'Herbelot, "The Rose-bush," down to the writers of to-day. In Italy, one of the names of the Virgin Mary is Santa Maria della Rosa, for when she came to be worshipped, and to take that place in the human heart which the Saviour alone should occupy, men believed her to be typified both by the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. In the "Paradise" of Dante, the Virgin is called the "Mystic Rose," and in ancient times the flower was especially dedicated to her. In pictures of the Madonna, as in the Madonna of the Rose-bush, by Martin Schoen, the background is often formed of a garden of roses. Shepherd, in his work on the Book of Common Prayer, remarks, that Mid-Lent Sunday was anciently called Rose-Sunday, and that on that day the Pope carried a golden rose in his hand on the way to and from Mass. In Eastern lands the rose is prized above all flowers, and forms a continual source of allusion in Oriental writings. Various

traditions of Scriptural personages, as well as those of their mythology, are connected with uses of the rose; and many a poet of those sunny climes expresses the fancy which Jami records :-" You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart for more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose." But we have wandered long from the wilding rose of our woods and hedges, which is sometimes planted for its succulent hips. These are bright red, and have a pleasant acid flavour, which the pulp preserves when dried; and children eat them notwithstanding the silky bristly covering of the seeds, which has been known in some cases to cause painful irritation of the throat. Their profusion on the trees was believed, as Lord Bacon tells us, to predict a severe winter, and modern rustics yet think so:

"The thorns and briars, vermilion-hue,

Now full of hips and haws are seen,

If village prophecies be true

They prove that winter will be keen."

The pulp of these fruits, beaten up with sugar, makes the conserve of hips sold by druggists, and a good pectoral medicine is derived from them. In former times, preparations made both from the fruits and petals were supposed to strengthen the heart and memory. An old herbalist says of the Dog-rose, “It were of small purpose to use many words in the description thereof, for even children with great delight eat the berries thereof when they be ripe, and make chaines and other pretty gewgaws of the fruit; cookes and gentlewomen make tarts and such like dishes for pleasure thereof, and therefore this shall suffice for the description." Parkinson mentions among "the Physicale vertues of this and other roses, that the conserve is useful in "cooling heate of the eyes," and we have seen it most effectual for this purpose: this old writer also adds, "Divers doe make an excellent yellowe colour of the juyce of white roses, wherein some allome is dissolved, to paint or colour flowers, or pictures, or any such things." Gerarde tells of the "pleasant meates and banketting dishes" made of these fruits beaten up with sugar. Rose-water also was apparently used by our ancestors on some occasions; for in the charges in the account of a dinner of Lord Leiyster, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in 1570, we have the following item:-" :-"For iij oz. of rose watere, for boylde meats and leaches and gelleys and drie leches, and march payne, and to wash afore dinnere and after dinnere, iijs. ixd."

Every one accustomed to gather our wild rose has seen those green mossy tufts on its branches, which in autumn are tinged with crimson, and which on being opened are found to contain small worms. Country people call them Robin's cushions, though the Robin has no more to do with them than the toad with the toadstool. These excrescences are produced by the puncture of an insect, the Cynips Rosa, and the tufts themselves are known as Bedeguars. They are very astringent, and have been much used as a styptic, having been employed both externally and internally to check hæmorrhage.

Caroline White, whose thoughts on Flowers, whether expressed in prose or verse, are always true to Nature, has written for our volume this little Poem on the Rose:

"O bright imperial flower,
Whether by palace bower,

Or graceful wreathing round the poor man's cot;

Crowning young beauty's head,

Or clasp'd by fingers dead,

Or marking out for Love one heap'd up spot;

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'They cull'd thee for the breast

Of beauty in her rest :

The pulseless rest-that coucheth in the tomb;
And deck'd her in its trance,

As for some festive dance,

With gem-like tears and thy pale marble bloom.
"Feast, triumph, bridal, bier,

Joy's smiles, or Sorrow's tear,

Took radiance from thee, or a deeper woe;
Emblem of glowing Hope,

Of Life's fair promise broke,

Of Mirth, of Love, of shatter'd sweets laid low."

A plant, called the bracteated Dog-rose (Rosa bractescens), found at Ulverston in Lancashire, and at Ambleside in Westmoreland, is remarkable for hairy bracts, which overtop its globose fruit. It is by most writers considered to be a variety of Rosa canina; its leaflets are serrated, and downy beneath, and its pink flowers expand in June and July.

16. R. cdsia (Glaucous Dog-rose).-Prickles hooked; leaflets doubly serrated, and downy, without glands; sepals slightly pinnate. Plant perennial. This is very nearly allied to the common Dog-rose, and is perhaps but a variety of it, though its general appearance more resembles that of Rosa tomentosa. It is found in the north of this kingdom, and is in flower in June and July.

17. R. sýstyla (Close-styled Dog-rose).-Prickles hooked; leaves serrated, and pale green beneath, their disk without glands; sepals sparingly pinnate, not remaining on the fruit; styles united in a column; stigmas forming a round head. Plant perennial. The shoots of this rose are nearly erect, and sometimes attain the height of ten or twelve feet. It is found in hedges and thickets in various counties of England, and more rarely in Scotland and Ireland. Its white flowers expand in June and July.

18. R. arvensis (Trailing Dog-rose).-Prickles on the young shoots feeble; leaves smooth, their disk without glands; calyx slightly pinnate, not remaining on the fruit; styles united; stigmas forming a round knob. Plant perennial. This Rose may be known from all other native species by its slender trailing