ROSE, with globular seed-buds; flowers large, and elegantly
striped; peduncles hispid; the stem and petioles are hispid and
prickly; the leaflets are nearly egg-shaped, and villose beneath.
* * * * *
This elegant Striped variety of the _Rosa Gallica_ is certainly more
attractive than its original, the _officinalis_. Its fine red stripes
acquire a comparatively superior brilliance, by their contrast with the
white; from which analogous circumstance we believe the name of _Rosa
Mundi_ has been originally derived from a collateral reference to that
celebrated lady in the reign of Henry the Second, commonly called Fair
Rosamund (signifying Rose-mouth). Thus, like the Rose, the colour of her
lips was heightened by the comparative delicacy of her fair complexion;
and which the Author has no doubt will be considered as a fair excuse,
however remote or questionable the etymology. Like all other variegated
Roses, an exactitude of character is never to be expected; we having
sometimes seen it more divided than our figure represents, and at others
so much less so as to be nearly one half white, and the other red.
The drawing was made from fine plants in the nursery of Messrs. Whitley
and Brames, Old Brompton.
[Illustration]
ROSA Gallica; _Var. flore marmoreo_.
_French Rose; Marbled-flowered Variety._