A popular song in the days of Charles the 1st was that beginning with the lines—
“Gather your roses while you may,
For time is still a flying,
And that same flower that blooms to-day,
To-morrow may be dying.”
The leaves of rosa blanda are pale underneath; leaflets five to seven; flowers blush-pink; stem not very prickly; fruit red and round; the bush from one to three feet in height.
Another of our dwarf wild roses, R. lucida, is widely diffused over Canada; it is found on all open plain-lands, but shuns the deep shade of the forest.
The bark of this wild rose is of a bright red, and the young wood is armed with bristly prickles of a greyish colour. When growing in shade, the half opened flowers and buds are of a deep pink or carmine, but where more exposed in sunny spots, the petals fade to a pale blush-colour. This shrub becomes somewhat troublesome if encouraged in the garden, from the running roots which send up many shoots. In its wild state the dwarf rose seldom exceeds three feet in height; it is the second and older wood that bears the flowers: the flower bearing branches become almost smooth or only remotely thorny. The leaflets vary in number from five to nine; they are sharply serrated at the edges, and smooth on the surface; the globular scarlet fruit is flattened at the eye; of a pleasant sub-acid taste.
This beautiful red-barked rose grows in great profusion on the huckleberry plains above Rice Lake, clothing large tracts of hill and dale, and scenting the evening air at dew-fall with its delicate fragrance.
There is, or used to be, a delicate pale flowered briar rose, having small foliage and numerous blossoms of a low branching habit growing in the high oak-hills in the township of Rawdon. I have never seen the flowers myself, but have heard the plant described as a rare species. The Swamp Rose, Rosa Carolina, is not uncommon; it is often seen growing at the margin of lakes and rivers, and at the edges of stony islands; it will climb, by aid of supporting trees, to the height of eight and ten feet. The flowers are of a somewhat purplish tinge of pink. The leaves are whitish underneath; this rose is armed with rather stout prickles below on the old woody stem but smoother above; the flowers are more clustered than in either of the other species.