One of the prettiest of these fifteen is the Lawrence rose, (rosa Lawrenceana,) a fairy-like bush, six inches high, with flowers not much larger than a silver dime, blooming all the year round. By the side of this pigmy tree, which we must not forget to observe is remarkable for the symmetry of its proportions, is often found the many-flowered rose, (rosa multiflora,) whose flexible branches, rising sometimes to the height of sixteen feet, are covered in the early summer with magnificent clusters of pale pink double flowers.
Among the many double Chinese roses, the small-leaved one (rosa microphylla) is highly prized and most assiduously cultivated in its native land. Its delicate foliage and pale pink very double flowers are well known also to the rose-fanciers of the United States. Another beautiful variety, the rosa Banksiae, climbs the rocky fells of China, hiding their rugged barrenness with a living curtain of verdure, enamelled with multitudes of little drooping flowers of a yellowish white, which exhale the sweet odor of violets.
Cochin-China, with these same species, lays claim to two others that we must notice; the very thorny rose, (rosa spinosissima,) with scentless flesh-colored petals, and the white rose, (rosa alba,) which we also find indigenous in France, Lombardy, and other parts of Europe. Japan, besides the roses of China, possesses the rosa rugosa, the only one peculiar to the clime.
Passing on to Hindostan, we may believe that the tiger which prowls along the burning shores of the Bay of Bengal ofttimes crouches under the boughs blooming with the lovely white corollas of the many-bracted rose (rosa involucrata) to make his deadly spring, and that the crocodiles of the Ganges find secure hiding-places to lie in wait for their prey, beneath the ever-succeeding red blossoms and never-fading luxuriant foliage of the rosa semperflorens. How often, all the world over, are sweetest things but lurking-places for pain and death!
Among the hills of the peninsula we meet the large-leaved rose, (rosa macrophylla,) the tips of whose white petals are each stained with a small bright red spot; and on the margin of the sunny lakes of cool Cashmere, the milk-white flowers of Lyell's rose, (rosa Lyellii,) a beautiful species that has been successfully acclimatized in France.
In the gardens of Kandahar, Samarcand, and Ispahan the rose tree (rosa arborea) is cultivated; a real tree, with wide-spreading branches, covered in the spring with snowy flowers of the richest perfume, making fragrant the surrounding hill and dales. In Persia we also find the barberry-leaved rose, (rosa berberifolia,) a singular variety which displays a star-like yellow corolla marked in the centre with a deep crimson stain. So unlike is this flower to all others of the family that one feels almost inclined to deny its claim to any relationship with the queen of flowers. Science, however, has decided that the rosa berberifolia is a true rose.
Further on to the west, beneath "the sultry blue of Syria's heaven," we encounter the lovely corymbs of the damask rose, (rosa damascena,) with crimson velvet or variegated petals and gold-colored stamens. It is said that the valiant knights who accompanied the French king Saint Louis to the Crusades brought back with them to France this beautiful flower, an ever-living witness of their prowess in the Holy Land. It is as beloved by the honey-bees of Europe as its wilder sisters on the sweet banks of Jordan have ever been by the blossom-rifling rovers of Palestine.
As the rose-seeker wanders forth from Syria toward the north he is arrested for a moment by the vivid yellow double flowers of the rosa sulfurea, but has scarcely time to admire them, graceful though they be, before he catches sight of the loveliest and most fragrant of all roses, the rosa centifolia, the hundred-leaved rose, the rose of the nightingale, the rose of the poet!
"Rose! what dost thou here?
Bridal, royal rose!
How, 'midst grief and fear,
Canst thou thus disclose
That fervid hue of love which to thy heart-leaf glows?
"Smilest thou, gorgeous flower?
Oh! within the spells
Of thy beauty's power
Something dimly dwells
At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells.
"All the soul forth-flowing
In that rich perfume,
All the proud life glowing
In that radiant bloom,
Have they no place but here, beneath th' o'ershadowing tomb?
"Crown'st thou but the daughters
Of our tearful race?
Heaven's own purest waters
Well might wear the trace
Of thy consummate form, melting to softer grace.
"Will that clime enfold thee
With immortal air?
Shall we not behold thee
Bright and deathless there?
In spirit-lustre clothed, transcendently more fair!"