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ROSA cæsia.
Glaucous-leaved Rose.
So
ICOSANDRIA Polygynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. urn-shaped, fleshy, contracted at
the orifice, terminating in 5 segments. Petals 5.
Seeds numerous, bristly, fixed to the inside o f the
calyx.
Spec. Char. Fruit roundish-ovate, smooth. Prickles
of the stem hooked. Leaflets ovate, pointed,
doubly serrated, downy ; very glaucous, as well
as the germen and young branches.
Syn. Rosa canina, pubescens. Afzel. in Ann. of
Pot. v. 2. 2 1 1 .
F o u n d by Mr. W . Borrer in the highland valleys of Perthshire
and Argyleshire, covered with a profusion of flowers in
July. “ The bush is compact, not so tall as R. caning t. 992.
Flowers usually solitary, sometimes in pairs, generally of an
uniform, but very beautiful, carnation hue, occasionally white.
Calyx sometimes sprinkled with glands, sometimes not. Young
twigs, leaves and germen remarkably caesious.” Such is Mr.
Borrer’s account. His specimens agree most precisely with
Swedish ones, sent by Dr. Afzelius, and prove to be what the
latter has, in the place above quoted, mentioned as an indubitably
new Rosa, hitherto confounded with canina. It differs
from that common species in its downy leaves, and their very
glaucous hue. Dr. Swartz, from whom also we have Swedish
specimens, observes that the figure of the fruit varies from oblong
to nearly globose, or to obovate. Our generally very accurate
friend Afzelius seems to have made one mistake in his
account; for in all the specimens we have seen, the flowers are
most clustered in canina, being in the present species almost,
always solitary, rarely even in pairs, so that in this point he
seems to have accidentally spoken of the one for the other.