Rose with roundish seed-buds, and peduncles slightly hispid,
smooth, and shining: flowers red, large, and sweet-scented: leaves
smooth, shining, and of a dark purply green colour: petioles
prickly: leaflets oblong, and sawed at the edges: stem green,
smooth, with red thorns on the lower part.
* * * * *
The Indica rubra is regarded as the finest of the ever-blooming China
Roses. By some it is thought to be a distinct species, from the dark
colour and smaller size of its foliage: but this is most likely the
effect of its recent importation; and, when it becomes more familiarised
to our climate, may in part if not totally disappear. As a variety of
the Indica we think it may with propriety be considered, from the
flowers being sometimes found as pale as that species: a circumstance
that has not as yet occurred in the semperflorens already figured,
although it has been so many years in cultivation with us; and which
would doubtless have sometimes been the case, had it not been a distinct
species, as permanence of character, either in shape or colour, can
never be expected to characterize mere varieties.
It was introduced last summer from China by T. Evans, esq. of Stepney,
and flowered first at the nursery of Messrs. Colville.
[Illustration]
ROSA Indica, _minor_.
_Small Indian Rose._