Shakespeare's special roses are the Red, the White, the Musk, the Eglantine (sweetbrier), the Provençal, or Provins, the Damask, the Canker, and the Variegated.
[49] "Love's Labour's Lost"; Act IV, Scene III.
THE RED ROSE (Rose Anglica rubra), the English red, is thus described by Parkinson:
"The Red Rose, which I call English because this rose is more frequent and used in England than in other places, never groweth so high as the Damask Rose-bush, but more usually abideth low and shooteth forth many branches from the Rose-bush (and is but seldom suffered to grow up as the Damask Rose into standards) with a green bark thinner set with prickles and longer and greener leaves on the upper side than in the white, yet with an eye of white upon them, five likewise most usually set upon a stalk and grayish, or whitish, underneath. The Roses, or flowers, do very much vary according to their site and abiding, for some are of an orient red, or deep crimson, color and very double (although never so double as the White), which, when it is full blown, hath the largest leaves of any other Rose; some of them again are paler, tending somewhat to a Damask; and some are of so pale a red as that it is rather of the color of a Canker Rose, yet all for the most part with larger leaves than the Damask, and with many more yellow threads in the middle. The scent hereof is much better than in the White, but not comparable to the excellency of the Damask Rose, yet this Rose, being well dried and well kept, will hold both color and scent longer than the Damask."
THE WHITE ROSE (Rosa Anglica alba).
"The White Rose is of two kinds," says Parkinson, "the one more thick and double than the other. The one riseth up in some shadowy places unto eight or ten foot high, with a stock of great bigness for a rose. The other growing seldom higher than a Damask Rose. Both these Roses have somewhat smaller and whiter green leaves than in many other Roses, five most usually set on a stock and more white underneath, as also a whiter green bark, armed with sharp thorns, or prickles. The flowers in the one are whitish with an eye, or shew, of a blush, especially towards the ground, or bottom, of the flower, very thick, double and close set together; and, for the most part, not opening itself so largely and fully as either the Red, or Damask Rose. The other more white, less thick and double and opening itself more, and some so little double (as but of two or three rows) that they might be held to be single, yet all of little or no smell at all."
From this Rosa alba, Pliny says, the isle of Albion derived its name—a happy thought when we remember that the rose is still the national emblem of England.
MUSK-ROSE (Rosa moschata). Musk-roses and eglantine mingled with honeysuckle formed the canopy beneath which Titania slumbered on a bank made soft and lovely with wild thyme, oxlips and nodding violets. And in the "coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers" that the dainty little fairy queen placed upon the hairy temples of Bottom the Weaver, musk-roses were conspicuous; and the sweetness of these was intensified by "the round and Orient pearls of dew" that swelled upon the petals, as the "pretty flowerets bewailed their own disgrace."