The Geography of Roses.
Wherever man has found a dwelling-place, bounteous nature has conferred on him not only the necessaries of life, but a share also of its pleasures. From "sultry India to the pole," the useful and the beautiful are met with side by side. The bright poppy and the blue cornflower rise with the wheat-ear in the same broad field; the sweet-smelling amaryllis and the delicate iris unfold their variegated petals among the thick stalks of the African maize, while the marsh-rose and the water-lily float on the surface of the waters that inundate the rice-grounds of Egypt and India.
It is evident that nature regards these fair blossoms as indispensable to man's happiness as those other more substantial gifts are to his comfort and existence; and so, with lavish hand, she scatters them on the mountain and in the valley, amidst plains of burning sand, or half-buried in snow and ice.
"Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor
Weep without woe, and blush without a crime,
Oh! may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender,
Your law sublime.
"Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for pleasure.
Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night,
From every source your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight.
"Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary
For such a world of thought could furnish scope?
Each fading calyx a memento mori,
Yet fount of hope."
The rose, fairest of the floral train, has been said by some botanists to take its birth in Asia. "The east, the cradle of the first man," writes a French author, "is also the native place of the rose; the flowery hillsides near the chain of the frowning Caucasus were the first spots on earth adorned with this charming shrub." We do not incline to this opinion, for the researches of science have proved that the lovely flower is found in every clime, from the arctic circle to the torrid zone, and that under every sun it seems to be endowed with some different grace. The same species is sometimes met with over a whole continent; another is unknown beyond the limits of a certain province; while another again never leaves the mountain or dale where it first shed its sweetness on the air. Thus Pollin's rose (rosa Pollinaria) is never found but at the foot of Monte Baldo in Italy, nor the Lyon rose (rosa Lyonii) out of the State of Tennessee; while the field-rose (rosa arvensis) trails its long branches and clusters of white flowers all over Europe, and the dog-rose (rosa canina) displays its pale pink petals and scarlet hips, not only throughout Europe, but also in northern Asia and a part of America.
So numerous, indeed, are the varieties of this favorite of nature, that we will not attempt to describe all that are peculiar to each country; we will confine our attention to those only most remarkable for their beauty, and most easy of culture.
First on the list of American roses, and far away among the eternal ice that covers the almost desert regions which lie between the seventieth and seventy-fifth degrees of north latitude, blooms rosa blanda, the charming soft-colored rose, which as soon as the sun has melted the snow in the valleys opens its large corolla, always solitary on its graceful stem, to the warm breathings from the south. We can picture to ourselves the delight of the stunted, amphibious Greenlander, when, the long months of the fierce winter past, he suddenly meets the expanding blossom. He smiles as he remembers how his young wife mourned last year over the death of the flowers, and he plucks the first rose of Greenland's short summer to carry back to her as a proof that she must ever hope and trust.
"Why must the flowers die?
Prisoned they lie
In the cold tomb, heedless of tears and rain.
O doubting heart!
They only sleep below
The soft white ermine snow:
While winter winds shall blow,
To breathe and smile on you again!"
Rosa blanda's nearest neighbor is the pretty rosa rap of Hudson's Bay, whose slender, graceful branches are laden in the early summer with corymbs of pale pink double flowers. Nature herself has doubled rosa rapa's sweet corolla, as if she had foreseen that the wandering tribes of Esquimaux who inhabit those inclement shores would have too much to do in their never-ending struggle to pick up a precarious existence ever to busy themselves with the culture of the cold, unyielding soil.
Rosa blanda and rosa rapa are still at home in Labrador and Newfoundland, but with them two remarkable varieties—the ash-leaved rose, (rosa fraxinifolia,) with small red heart-shaped petals, and the lustrous rose, (rosa nitida,) which shelters its brilliant red cup-like flower and fruit beneath the scraggy trees that grow sparsely along the coast. The lustrous rose is a great favorite with the young Esquimaux maidens, who dress their black hair with its shining cups, and wear bunches of it, "embowered in its own green leaves," in the bosom of their seal-skin robes.
The United States possess a great number of different roses. At the foot of almost every rocky acclivity we meet the rose with diffuse branches, (rosa diffusa,) whose pink flowers, growing in couples on their stem, appear at the beginning of the summer. On the slopes of the Pennsylvanian hills blooms the small-flowered rose, (rosa parviflora,) an elegant little species bearing double flowers of the most delicate pink; it may fairly vie in beauty with all other American roses. In most of the Middle States, on the verge of the "mossy forests, by the bee-bird haunted," we find the straight-stemmed rose, (rosa stricta,) with light red petals, and the brier-leaved rose, (rosa rubifolia,) with small, pale red flowers, growing generally in clusters of three.
The silken rose (rosa setigera) opens its great red petals, shaped like an inverted heart, beneath the "cloistered boughs" of South Carolina's woods, and in Georgia the magnificent smooth-leaved rose, (rosa loevigata,) known in its native wilds as the Cherokee rose, climbs to the very summit of the great forest trees, then swings itself off in festoons of large white flowers glancing like stars amidst their glossy, dark green leaves.
When we leave the hills and woodlands, we find the marshes of the Carolinas gay with the rosa evratina, the rosa Carolina, and the rosa lucida, the resplendent rose, whose corymbs of brilliant red flowers overtop the reeds among which they love to blossom; while, nearer to the setting sun, we see the pink petals of Wood's rose (rosa Woodsii) reflected in the waters of the great Missouri.
The last American rose we shall note in this slight sketch is the rose of Montezuma, (rosa Montezumae,) a solitary, sweet-scented, pale red flower with defenceless branches. It was discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland on the elevated peaks of the Cerro Ventoso, in Mexico, and is perhaps the very rose of which the unhappy Guatimozin thought when writhing on his bed of burning charcoal.
These are some of the species yet known to belong peculiarly to the western hemisphere; but it is highly probable that many others remain still to be discovered. When we remember the prodigality with which nature lavishes her gifts, we cannot believe that while France alone possesses twenty-four varieties of roses, all described by De Candolle in his Flore Française, the great American continent owns but fifteen.
We will commence our European rose search in that most unpromising of all spots, Iceland; there, where volcanic fire and polar ice seem to dispute possession of the unhappy soil. So scarce is every kind of vegetation in this rude clime, that the miserable inhabitants are frequently compelled to feed their cows, sheep, and horses on dried fish. And yet even here, growing from the fissures of the barren rocks, a solitary cup-shaped rose opens its pale petals to the transient sunbeams of summer. This hardy little plant is, as its name, rosa spinosissima, indicates, covered all over with prickles. Its cream-colored flowers, numerous and solitary, are sometimes tinged with pink on the outside, and its fruit, at first red, becomes perfectly black when ripe.
In Lapland, too, a country almost as disinherited by nature as Iceland, the pretty little May rose (rosa maïalis) expands its bright red corolla even before the tardy sun has melted away all the snow that has covered it during nine long months. A little later on, in the full blush of the short summer, "when the pine has a fringe of softer green," the Lapp maidens gather the blood-red flowers of the rosa rubella among the stunted trees whose parasitical mosses and lichens afford a scanty nourishment to the flocks of reindeer, sole riches of the land.
The May rose is also found in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, together with the cinnamon rose (rosa cinnamomea,) and several other species.
England claims ten indigenous roses, many of them, however, exceedingly difficult to distinguish from each other. The most common is the dog-rose or Eglantine, found in every hedge and thicket, and very precious to rose-cultivators, its elegant, straight, vigorous stems being admirable for receiving grafts. The light pink corolla is slightly perfumed. In olden times the scarlet fruit was made into conserve, and highly esteemed in tarts, but it seems now to be abandoned to the birds. The rosa arvensis, a small shrub with long trailing branches and white flowers, and the burnet-leaved rose, which resembles the rosa spinosissima of Iceland, are also very frequently met. But the pride of the southern counties is the rosa rubiginosa, the true sweet-briar, with deep pink petals and leaves of the most delicious fragrance; a flower that seems to belong as peculiarly to the soft English spring as the primrose and violet, and like them to be emblematic of the English girl, delicate in her beauty, modest and retiring in her garb and manners, and diffusing around her an atmosphere of gentle sweetness. Such, at least, was the English girl five-and-twenty years ago; it is said that hoops and boots and croquet have produced strange changes. Alas! that simplicity and modesty and sweetness should ever go out of fashion.
In the Scotch fir-woods is found the rose with rolled petals, (rosa involuta.) The large flowers are red and white, and the remarkably sombre leaves when rubbed between the fingers give forth a strong smell of turpentine, an odor the plant has probably acquired from the resinous trees that shelter it. All the rugged mountains of Scotland possess their roses; the rosa sabini, with clustering flowers, and the villous or hairy rose, (rosa villosa,) with white or deep red, are the most worthy of notice.
It is only in the environs of Belfast that we encounter the Irish rose, (rosa hibernica,) a species somewhat resembling both the spinosissima and the canina. The other roses of beautiful Ireland are identical with those of England.
The fields and forests of France have been richly endowed with nature's favorite flower. Our now well-known friend canina flourishes there also in every hedge and by every wood-side, together with a pretty white rose, (rosa alba,) which has been very successfully cultivated in gardens. The smiling hill-sides around Dijon are gay with the lovely little crimson double flowers of the rose of Champagne, (rosa parviflora;) and, in the south, the yellow rose (rosa eglantaria) and its varieties surpass all others in the richness of their coloring; their petals sometimes gleaming with the brightest gold, sometimes deepening into a brilliant orange red, sometimes reproducing both hues in vivid flecks and streaks. The woods of Auvergne are bedecked with the small red solitary corollas of the cinnamon rose, (rosa cinnamomea,) so called from the color of its stalks; and in the department of the eastern Pyrenees the musk-rose blooms spontaneously in magnificent corymbs. This exquisitely scented species is also extensively cultivated for its aromatic essential oil; one of its kindred is the nutmeg rose, a pretty flower that smells of the spice.
The Province rose, so often remarkable for its variegated petals of white, crimson, and pink, is a variety of the rose of France, (rosa gallica,) a species that has given horticulturists a great number of beautiful offshoots.
Crossing the Pyrenean mountains, we again meet with the musk-rose, but this time in close companionship with the rose of Spain, (rosa hispanica,) whose bright red petals expand in the month of May.
In the Balearic Islands the climbing branches of the evergreen rose (rosa semper-virens,) are seen constantly arrayed in lustrous green leaves mingled with innumerable white perfumed flowers. This beautiful rose is also found in other parts of the south of Europe, and in Barbary.
We have already mentioned Polin's rose, a sweet Italian blossom which never strays from the foot of Monte Baldo, in the neighborhood of Verona. Its large crimson corollas open in handsome clusters.
Sicily and Greece possess the gluey rose, (rosa glutinosa,) a small, red, solitary flower, with glandular, viscous leaflets.
Germany is poorer in native roses than any other part of Europe; nevertheless nowhere do the blossoms of the field-rose display such beauty, unless, indeed, among the mountains of Switzerland. Nowhere else are they so large, so deeply tinted, and double. Germany also gives birth to the curious turbinated rose, (rosa turbinata,) whose double corolla rests on a top-shaped ovary.
The whole chain of the Alps abounds with roses. The field-rose, and the ruby-red Alpine rose, (rosa alpina,) an elegant shrub which has contributed many esteemed varieties to our gardens, bloom in admirable luxuriance in every forest glade and mountain dingle; while the red-leaved rose, (rosa rubrifolia,) with red stalks and dark red petals, stands out in the summer landscape, a charming contrast to the green foliage of the surrounding trees.
The leaves of another species growing among the pines and firs of these elevated regions, the rose with prickly leaflets, (rosa spinulifolia,) emit when rubbed the same odor of turpentine that we have already noticed in the rosa involutaof Scotland. It is singular to observe that the only two roses we know with this smell are both natives of pine-covered mountains.
The east has for ages been esteemed the home of flowers; almost as soon as we can lisp, we are taught that
"In eastern lands they talk with flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers
On its leaves a mystic language bears."
And in joyous youth who has not dreamed of that "bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream," so sweetly sung by the Irish bard? The very name of India reminds one of Nourmahal and of that most enchanting of all feasts, "the feast of roses."
It will then scarcely surprise any one to be told that Asia, the birthplace of the great human family, is also the birthplace of more varieties of roses than all the other parts of the world put together. Thirty-nine species have been discovered indigenous to this favored portion of the globe, fifteen of which belong to the Chinese empire.
One of the prettiest of these fifteen is the Lawrence rose, (rosa Lawrenceana,) a fairy-like bush, six inches high, with flowers not much larger than a silver dime, blooming all the year round. By the side of this pigmy tree, which we must not forget to observe is remarkable for the symmetry of its proportions, is often found the many-flowered rose, (rosa multiflora,) whose flexible branches, rising sometimes to the height of sixteen feet, are covered in the early summer with magnificent clusters of pale pink double flowers.
Among the many double Chinese roses, the small-leaved one (rosa microphylla) is highly prized and most assiduously cultivated in its native land. Its delicate foliage and pale pink very double flowers are well known also to the rose-fanciers of the United States. Another beautiful variety, the rosa Banksiae, climbs the rocky fells of China, hiding their rugged barrenness with a living curtain of verdure, enamelled with multitudes of little drooping flowers of a yellowish white, which exhale the sweet odor of violets.
Cochin-China, with these same species, lays claim to two others that we must notice; the very thorny rose, (rosa spinosissima,) with scentless flesh-colored petals, and the white rose, (rosa alba,) which we also find indigenous in France, Lombardy, and other parts of Europe. Japan, besides the roses of China, possesses the rosa rugosa, the only one peculiar to the clime.
Passing on to Hindostan, we may believe that the tiger which prowls along the burning shores of the Bay of Bengal ofttimes crouches under the boughs blooming with the lovely white corollas of the many-bracted rose (rosa involucrata) to make his deadly spring, and that the crocodiles of the Ganges find secure hiding-places to lie in wait for their prey, beneath the ever-succeeding red blossoms and never-fading luxuriant foliage of the rosa semperflorens. How often, all the world over, are sweetest things but lurking-places for pain and death!
Among the hills of the peninsula we meet the large-leaved rose, (rosa macrophylla,) the tips of whose white petals are each stained with a small bright red spot; and on the margin of the sunny lakes of cool Cashmere, the milk-white flowers of Lyell's rose, (rosa Lyellii,) a beautiful species that has been successfully acclimatized in France.
In the gardens of Kandahar, Samarcand, and Ispahan the rose tree (rosa arborea) is cultivated; a real tree, with wide-spreading branches, covered in the spring with snowy flowers of the richest perfume, making fragrant the surrounding hill and dales. In Persia we also find the barberry-leaved rose, (rosa berberifolia,) a singular variety which displays a star-like yellow corolla marked in the centre with a deep crimson stain. So unlike is this flower to all others of the family that one feels almost inclined to deny its claim to any relationship with the queen of flowers. Science, however, has decided that the rosa berberifolia is a true rose.
Further on to the west, beneath "the sultry blue of Syria's heaven," we encounter the lovely corymbs of the damask rose, (rosa damascena,) with crimson velvet or variegated petals and gold-colored stamens. It is said that the valiant knights who accompanied the French king Saint Louis to the Crusades brought back with them to France this beautiful flower, an ever-living witness of their prowess in the Holy Land. It is as beloved by the honey-bees of Europe as its wilder sisters on the sweet banks of Jordan have ever been by the blossom-rifling rovers of Palestine.
As the rose-seeker wanders forth from Syria toward the north he is arrested for a moment by the vivid yellow double flowers of the rosa sulfurea, but has scarcely time to admire them, graceful though they be, before he catches sight of the loveliest and most fragrant of all roses, the rosa centifolia, the hundred-leaved rose, the rose of the nightingale, the rose of the poet!
"Rose! what dost thou here?
Bridal, royal rose!
How, 'midst grief and fear,
Canst thou thus disclose
That fervid hue of love which to thy heart-leaf glows?
"Smilest thou, gorgeous flower?
Oh! within the spells
Of thy beauty's power
Something dimly dwells
At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells.
"All the soul forth-flowing
In that rich perfume,
All the proud life glowing
In that radiant bloom,
Have they no place but here, beneath th' o'ershadowing tomb?
"Crown'st thou but the daughters
Of our tearful race?
Heaven's own purest waters
Well might wear the trace
Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace.
"Will that clime enfold thee
With immortal air?
Shall we not behold thee
Bright and deathless there?
In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendently more fair!"
The valleys of Circassia and Georgia are the birthplace of this most beautiful of flowers, of whose exquisite form, color, and perfume even Mrs. Hemans's rapturous verses can give no idea.
The fierce rose (rosa ferox) is sometimes found mingling its great red flowers with those of rosa centifolia, and the pulverulent rose (rosa pulverulenta) dwells near them on the declivities of the Peak of Manzana.
As we hasten on through the dreary steppes of Russian Asia, we meet the sad-looking yellowish rose, dismal in aspect as the land it lives in, and more remarkable for its great pulpy hip than for its flower. A little nearer to the north, the handsome, large-flowered rose (rosa grandiflora) expands its elegant corolla in the form of an antique vase, and on the plains lying at the foot of the Ural mountains the reddish rose, (rosa rubella,) with petals sometimes rich and deep in color, but more often faint and faded-looking, gladdens for a moment the heart-sore Polish exile as he wends his weary way to his living grave, faint and faded-looking as the flower that reminds him of his distant home.
Despite the cold breath of the frozen ocean, the acicular rose (rosa acicularis) lives and thrives on its shores, and regularly opens its pale-red solitary blossoms at the first call of the short-lived Siberian summer. The icy breezes of the frigid zone may have done much, however, toward developing the ill-natured tendency to long, needle-like thorns to which this rose owes its uncouth name.
Omitting ten or twelve other varieties, we will conclude the list of the indigenous roses of Asia with the rose of Kamtschatka, (rosa Kamtschatica,) a beautiful solitary flower of a pinkish white color, and bearing some resemblance to the rosa rugosa of Japan.
The roses of Africa are still to be discovered; its vast unexplored regions perhaps contain many as beautiful as those we possess, but at present we are only acquainted with four or five species, one of which, the dog-rose, so common all over Europe, is a native of Egypt. Among the mountains of Abyssinia blooms a pretty red variety with evergreen foliage, and on the borders of that "wild expanse of lifeless sand," the great Sahara in Egypt, and on the plains of Tunis and of Morocco, the corymbs of the white musk-rose (rosa moschata) perfume the ambient air. This charming flower is also indigenous to the Island of Madeira.
We have thus taken a bird's-eye view of the rose's habitat, passing over much of interesting, much of curious that has been written about the favorite flower. We might go on and mention the singular and marvellous virtues attributed to it by the ancients; we might (were we learned) learnedly discourse on the Island of Rhodes, whose coins are found bearing the effigy of the rose; of the rose-noble, and the old English fashion of wearing a rose behind the ear; we might describe the gardens of Ghazipour and the whole process of extracting the delicious attar of roses; we might hint at the mysterious influence the scented blossom appears to exercise over some strangely organized individuals, who seem capable "of dying of a rose, in aromatic pain;" but we prefer to conclude here our sketch of the geography of roses.
Unlearned and superficial as we well know it is, it may show some pleasant meanings to the young lover of flowers, and awaken his curiosity to examine for himself the floral treasures that bloom in every field, garden, and grove. Such a study will do more toward filling his heart with a spirit of love and peace, and elevating his mind above purely material cares, than any other pursuit; for
"Where does the Wisdom and the Power divine
In a more bright and sweet reflection shine?"
"From nature up to nature's God" is the natural result of all scientific investigations which are carried on with a real capacity of observation and a sincere love of truth. Feeling and thought, purified and sanctified by constant intercourse with the high objects of life, with the enduring things of nature, fail not to recognize the "Wisdom and the Spirit of the universe" in his works.
"Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining,
Far from all voice of teachers or divines,
My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining,
Priests, sermons, shrines!"