Читать книгу Parsons on the Rose - Samuel Browne Parsons - Страница 5

“When each inconstant breeze that blows

Steals essence from the musky rose.”

It is said to be a native of Barbary; but this has been doubted. It is, however, found wild in Tunis, and is cultivated there for the sake of an essential oil, which is obtained from the petals by distillation. It has also been found wild in Spain. The first record of the musk rose having been cultivated in England is in Hakluyt, in 1582, who states that the musk rose was brought to England from Italy. It was in common cultivation in the time of Gerard, and was formerly much valued for its musky fragrance, when that scent was the fashionable perfume. The Persian attar of roses is said to be obtained from this species. The musk rose does best trained against a wall, on account of the length and weakness of its branches; and Miller adds that it should always be pruned in spring, as in winter it will not bear the knife. It requires very little pruning, as the flowers are produced at the extremities of the shoots, which are often 10 feet or 12 feet in length. It flowers freely, and is well worthy of cultivation. This rose is thought by some to be the same as that of Cyrene, which Athenæus has mentioned as affording a delicious perfume, but of this there is no certain evidence. It seems to have been rare in Europe in the time of Gessner, the botanist, who, in a letter to Dr. Occon, dated Zurich, 1565, says that it was growing in a garden at Augsburg, and he was extremely anxious that the doctor should procure some of its shoots for him. Rivers mentions that Olivier, a French traveler, speaks of a rose tree at Ispahan, called the “Chinese Rose Tree,” fifteen feet high, formed by the union of several stems, each four or five inches in diameter. Seeds of this tree were sent to Paris and produced the common Musk Rose.

BANKSIANÆ.—Banksia Roses.

(So called because all the species contained in this section agree in character with R. Banksiæ, a rose named in honor of Lady Banks.)

Stipules nearly free, subulate, or very narrow, usually deciduous. Leaflets usually ternate, shining. Stems climbing. The species of this section are remarkable for their long, graceful, and often climbing, shoots, drooping flowers, and trifoliate, shining leaves. They are particularly distinguished by their deciduous, subulate, or very narrow stipules. Their fruit is very variable.

R. Banksiæ, R. Br.—Lady Banks’ or Banksia Rose.—Without prickles, glabrous, smooth. Leaflets 3 to 5, lanceolate, sparingly serrated, approximate. Stipules bristle-like, scarcely attached to the petiole, rather glossy, deciduous. Flowers in umbel-like corymbs, numerous, very double, sweet-scented, nodding. Tube of the calyx a little dilated at the tip. Fruit globose, black. A native of China. A climbing shrub, flowering in June and July.

Description, etc.—This is an exceedingly beautiful and very remarkable kind of rose; the flowers being small, round, and very double, on long peduncles, and resembling in form the flowers of the double French cherry, or that of a small ranunculus, more than those of the generality of roses. The flowers of R. Banksiæ alba are remarkably fragrant, the scent strongly resembling that of violets.

Thunberg speaks of the Rosa rugosa as growing in China and Japan, being extensively cultivated in the gardens of those countries, and producing flowers of a pale red or pure white. The original plant is of a deep purple color. Siebold, in his treatise on the flowers of Japan, says that this rose had been already cultivated in China about eleven hundred years, and that the ladies of the Court, under the dynasty of Long, prepared a very choice pot-pourri by mixing its petals with musk and camphor.

More than one hundred distinct species are mentioned by botanists, in addition to those we have enumerated, but none of very marked characters or much known.