SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
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.
