The people of our country were acquainted with but very few garland flowers among the garden plants, and those few hardly any but the violet and the rose. The plant which bears the rose is, properly speaking, more of a thorn than a shrub—indeed, we sometimes find it growing on a bramble1878 even; the flower having, even then, a pleasant smell, though by no means penetrating. The flower in all roses is originally enclosed in a bud,1879 with a grained surface within, which gradually swells, and assumes the form of a green pointed cone, similar to our alabaster1880 unguent boxes in shape. Gradually acquiring a ruddy tint, this bud opens little by little, until at last it comes into full blow, developing the calyx, and embracing the yellow-pointed filaments which stand erect in the centre of it.

The employment of the rose in chaplets is, so to say, the least1881 use that is made of it. The flower is steeped in oil, a practice which has prevailed from the times of the Trojan war, as Homer1882 bears witness; in addition to which, it now forms an ingredient in our unguents, as mentioned on a previous occasion.1883 It is employed also by itself for certain medicinal purposes, and is used in plasters and eye-salves1884 for its penetrating qualities: it is used, also, to perfume the delicacies of our banquets, and is never attended with any noxious results.

The most esteemed kinds of rose among us are those of Præneste1885 and Campania.1886 Some persons have added to these varieties the rose of Miletus,1887 the flower of which is an extremely brilliant red, and has never more than a dozen petals. The next to it is the rose of Trachyn,1888 not so red as the last, and then that of Alabanda,1889 with whitish petals, but not so highly esteemed. The least esteemed of all, however, is the thorn rose,1890 the petals of which are numerous, but extremely small. The essential points of difference in the rose are the number1891 of the petals, the comparative number1892 of thorns on the stem, the colour, and the smell. The number of the petals, which is never less than five, goes on increasing in amount, till we find one variety with as many as a hundred, and thence known as the “centifolia:”1893 in Italy, it is to be found in Campania, and in Greece, in the vicinity of Philippi, though this last is not the place of its natural1894 growth. Mount Pangæeus,1895 in the same vicinity, produces a rose with numerous petals of diminutive size: the people of those parts are in the habit of transplanting it, a method which greatly tends to improve its growth. This kind, however, is not remarkable for its smell, nor yet is the rose which has a very large or very broad petal: indeed, we may state in a few words, that the best proof of the perfume of the flower is the comparative roughness of the calyx.1896

Cæpio, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, asserts that the centifolia is never employed for chaplets, except at the extreme1897 points of union as it were, being remarkable neither for its smell1898 nor its beauty. There is another variety of rose, too, called the “Grecian” rose by our people, and “lychnis”1899 by the Greeks: it grows nowhere except in humid soils, and has never more than five petals: it does not exceed the violet in size, and is destitute of smell. There is another kind, again, known to us as the “Græcula”1900 the petals of which are tightly rolled together, and which never open except when pressed in the hand, it having always the appearance, in fact, of being in bud: the petals of it are remarkably large. Another kind, again, springs from a stem like that of the mallow, the leaves being similar to those of the olive—the name given to it is “macetum.”1901 There is the rose of autumn, too, known to us as the “coroniola,”1902 which is of a middle size, between the varieties just mentioned. All these kinds, however, are destitute of smell, with the exception of the coroniola, and the one which grows on the bramble:1903 so extended is the scope for fictitious1904 productions!

And, indeed, the genuine rose, for the most part, is indebted for its qualities to the nature of the soil. That of Cyrenæ1905 is the most odoriferous of all, and hence it is that the unguents of that place are so remarkably fine: at Carthage, again, in Spain, there are early1906 roses throughout all the winter. The temperature, too, of the climate is not without its influence: for in some years we find the roses much less odoriferous than in others; in addition to which, their smell is always more powerful when grown in dry soils1907 than in humid ones. The rose does not admit of being planted in either a rich or an argillaceous soil, nor yet on irrigated land; being contented with a thin, light earth, and more particularly attached to ground on which old building rubbish has been laid.

The rose of Campania is early, that of Miletus late, but it is the rose of Præneste that goes off the very latest of all. For the rose, the ground is generally dug to a greater depth than it is for corn, but not so deep as for the vine. It grows but very slowly1908 from the seed, which is found in the calyx beneath the petals of the flower, covered with a sort of down; hence it is that the method of grafting is usually the one preferred, or else propagation from the eyes of the root, as in the reed.1909 One kind is grafted, which bears a pale flower, with thorny branches of a remarkable length; it belongs to the quinquefolia variety, being one of the Greek roses.1910 All roses are improved by being pruned and cauterized; transplanting, too, makes them grow, like the vine, all the better, and with the greatest rapidity. The slips are cut some four fingers in length or more, and are planted immediately after the setting of the Vergiliæ; then, while the west winds are prevalent, they are transplanted at intervals of a foot, the earth being frequently turned up about them.

Persons whose object it is to grow early roses, make a hole a foot in width about the root, and pour warm water into it, at the period when the buds are beginning to put forth.1911