Nat. Ord. Rosaceæ.
EARLY WILD ROSE.
Rosa Blanda.
“Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermillion of the rose.”
Shakespeare.
“The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem,
For that sweet odour which in it doth live.”
Shakespeare.
UR Artist has given us in the present plate a charming specimen of one of our native roses. The early flowering Rose (Rosa blanda) is hardly so deeply tinted as our dwarf wild rose, rosa lucida, but both possess attractions of colour and fragrance; qualities that have made the rose to be the theme, of many a poet’s song. In the flowery language of the East, beauty and the rose seem almost to be synonymous. The Italian poets are full of allusions to the rose, especially to the red damask rose, which they call “purpurea rosa.”