In Lapland, too, a country almost as disinherited by nature as Iceland, the pretty little May rose (rosa maïalis) expands its bright red corolla even before the tardy sun has melted away all the snow that has covered it during nine long months. A little later on, in the full blush of the short summer, "when the pine has a fringe of softer green," the Lapp maidens gather the blood-red flowers of the rosa rubella among the stunted trees whose parasitical mosses and lichens afford a scanty nourishment to the flocks of reindeer, sole riches of the land.
The May rose is also found in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, together with the cinnamon rose (rosa cinnamomea,) and several other species.
England claims ten indigenous roses, many of them, however, exceedingly difficult to distinguish from each other. The most common is the dog-rose or Eglantine, found in every hedge and thicket, and very precious to rose-cultivators, its elegant, straight, vigorous stems being admirable for receiving grafts. The light pink corolla is slightly perfumed. In olden times the scarlet fruit was made into conserve, and highly esteemed in tarts, but it seems now to be abandoned to the birds. The rosa arvensis, a small shrub with long trailing branches and white flowers, and the burnet-leaved rose, which resembles the rosa spinosissima of Iceland, are also very frequently met. But the pride of the southern counties is the rosa rubiginosa, the true sweet-briar, with deep pink petals and leaves of the most delicious fragrance; a flower that seems to belong as peculiarly to the soft English spring as the primrose and violet, and like them to be emblematic of the English girl, delicate in her beauty, modest and retiring in her garb and manners, and diffusing around her an atmosphere of gentle sweetness. Such, at least, was the English girl five-and-twenty years ago; it is said that hoops and boots and croquet have produced strange changes. Alas! that simplicity and modesty and sweetness should ever go out of fashion.
In the Scotch fir-woods is found the rose with rolled petals, (rosa involuta.) The large flowers are red and white, and the remarkably sombre leaves when rubbed between the fingers give forth a strong smell of turpentine, an odor the plant has probably acquired from the resinous trees that shelter it. All the rugged mountains of Scotland possess their roses; the rosa sabini, with clustering flowers, and the villous or hairy rose, (rosa villosa,) with white or deep red, are the most worthy of notice.
It is only in the environs of Belfast that we encounter the Irish rose, (rosa hibernica,) a species somewhat resembling both the spinosissima and the canina. The other roses of beautiful Ireland are identical with those of England.
The fields and forests of France have been richly endowed with nature's favorite flower. Our now well-known friend canina flourishes there also in every hedge and by every wood-side, together with a pretty white rose, (rosa alba,) which has been very successfully cultivated in gardens. The smiling hill-sides around Dijon are gay with the lovely little crimson double flowers of the rose of Champagne, (rosa parviflora;) and, in the south, the yellow rose (rosa eglantaria) and its varieties surpass all others in the richness of their coloring; their petals sometimes gleaming with the brightest gold, sometimes deepening into a brilliant orange red, sometimes reproducing both hues in vivid flecks and streaks. The woods of Auvergne are bedecked with the small red solitary corollas of the cinnamon rose, (rosa cinnamomea,) so called from the color of its stalks; and in the department of the eastern Pyrenees the musk-rose blooms spontaneously in magnificent corymbs. This exquisitely scented species is also extensively cultivated for its aromatic essential oil; one of its kindred is the nutmeg rose, a pretty flower that smells of the spice.
The Province rose, so often remarkable for its variegated petals of white, crimson, and pink, is a variety of the rose of France, (rosa gallica,) a species that has given horticulturists a great number of beautiful offshoots.
Crossing the Pyrenean mountains, we again meet with the musk-rose, but this time in close companionship with the rose of Spain, (rosa hispanica,) whose bright red petals expand in the month of May.
In the Balearic Islands the climbing branches of the evergreen rose (rosa semper-virens,) are seen constantly arrayed in lustrous green leaves mingled with innumerable white perfumed flowers. This beautiful rose is also found in other parts of the south of Europe, and in Barbary.