It is evident, that, by continuing the process of hybridizing, hybrids may be mixed with hybrids, till the blood of half a score of the original races is mingled in one plant. This, in some cases, is, without doubt, actually the case; and this bastard progeny must, of necessity, be classified rather by its visible characteristics than by its parentage. Thus a host of ever-blooming hybrids, which are neither Noisette nor Bourbon nor Perpetual Moss, have been cast into one grand group, under the comprehensive title of Hybrid Perpetuals. Whence have they sprung? What has been their parentage? The question is easier asked than answered: for as, in a great nation of the West, one may discern the lineaments and hear the accents of diverse commingled races; so here we may trace the features of many and various families of Indian or Siberian, Chinese or European, extraction. The Hybrid Perpetuals, however, inherit their remontant character chiefly from Rosa Indica,—the China or Tea Rose,—and, in a far less degree, from the Damask Perpetual. An infusion of the former exists, in greater or less degree, in all of them; while the blood of the Damask Perpetual shows its traces in comparatively few. Many of the group are the results of a union between the Hybrid China roses and some variety of the China or Tea. Others owe their origin to the Hybrid China and the Bourbon, both parents being hybrids of Rosa Indica. Others are offspring of the Hybrid China crossed with the Damask Perpetual; while many spring from intermarriages within the group itself,—Hybrid Perpetual with Hybrid Perpetual.
By some over-zealous classifiers, this group has been cut up into various subdivisions, as Bourbon Perpetual, Rose de Rosomène, and the like; a procedure never sufficiently to be deprecated, as tending to produce no results but perplexity and confusion. Where there, can be no definite basis of division, it is well to divide as little as may be; and it is to be hoped that secession from the heterogeneous commonwealth of the Hybrid Perpetuals will be effectually repressed. In regard to roses in general, while a classification founded on evident natural affinities is certainly desirable, yet, in the name of common sense, let us avoid the multiplication of new hybrid groups, founded on flimsy distinctions, and christened with new names, which begin with meaning little, and end with meaning nothing.
In our enumeration of the families and varieties of the rose, we shall make two great divisions,—that of the "Summer," or once-blooming, and that of the "Autumnal," or "ever-blooming" roses. In each of these divisions, we shall place first the roses of unmixed race, and, after them, the hybrids which have sprung from their combinations.
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