[1898] This is not the case with the Rosa centifolia of modern botany. See Note [1893] above. It is not improbable, however, that the reading is “probabilis,” and that this passage belongs to the next sentence.
[1899] The Lychnis, Fée remarks, is erroneously classed by Pliny among the roses. It is generally agreed among naturalists that it is the garden flower, the Agrostemma coronaria of Linnæus; which, however, does not grow in humid soils, but in steep, rocky places.
[1900] Or “small Greek” rose. Some commentators have identified it with the Rosa silvestris, odorata, flore albo of C. Bauhin, a wild white rose.
[1901] Sillig thinks that this may mean the “Macedonian” rose. Another reading is “moscheuton.” Fée says that it is not a rose at all, but one of the Malvaceæ belonging to the genus Alcæa; one variety of which is called the Alcæa rosa.
[1902] Or “little chaplet.” Possibly a variety of the Eglantine, the Rosa canina or dog-rose, Fée suggests.
[1903] The Eglantine.
[1904] This seems to be the meaning of “tot modis adulteratur:” the roses without smell appearing to him to be not genuine roses.
[1905] The Rosa Damascena of Miller, Fée thinks, our Damascus rose.
[1906] The earliest rose in France and Spain, Fée says, is the “pompon,” the variety Pomponæa of the Rosa centifolia.
[1907] This is consistent with modern experience.