Show Th SWEETBRIER I 4 4 t tt Ir 1 1 i Ar 1 i s HARRIET L KEELER F HE Sweetbrier or Eglantine Rosa RosaI THE I is a 8 native of Europe And Central Asi Evidently it was wa domesticated in EngI nd at a very early period and 1100 it seems to have kave touched the En English sAid and to have won on the English heart Lord Bacon writing Of Gardens in says And because e the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air where I It comes and goes like the warbling of music than in the hand there therefore ore Ing Is more fit for that delight than to kno know what hat be the flowers and plants that do best beet perfume the air Among the list that he enumerates are violet mu musk k rose and Spenser Spens writing about the same notes b th I the perfume and the thorns Sweet Is the but nere Sonnet Shakespeare who ho stands unequalled In any that he attempts thus lot im s the plant I I kno know a bank where the tho wild th thyme me blo blows I Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite with Ith luscious woodbine Woodhine With sweet musk r rose ee and with eglan eglantine eglantine tine Midsummer Nights Dream m Possibly the tho was 85 brought I to America by the Pilgrims certainly It bloomed in New England gardens in Inthe the seventeenth century I The bush is fairly erect though it often sends out long wands ot of branches branch s that reach out In every direction from the center of the plant These are armed principally with stout spines which art are Quick to seize elze and strong to bold whatever comes withIn reach Because ot of this fierce fierre armament and reaching habit the bush has very generally been b rt Od from lawns and gardens but it Us to sides and there ers e young I It may be found JW mt Js and diffusing its perfume me for r the he 11 as Ure of t pa Its wild hab habItat habItat now extends from Nova XOa Scotia Scolia and the St Lawrence valle valley to the south era em states and the Mississippi river The rose itself is small five pale pink as it opens becoming paler as the hours of Its life go by As s a rule the roses are solitary but sometimes two appear near together Curiously enough the flower Is odorless the do de delicious licious fragrance which gives the plant Its name resides in the minute amber colored glands or dots with which the leaves are covered both above and be low 0 These may be readily seen upon the under side of oC the leaf where they are most The structure of a rose rosc is very inter interesting eating esting but It can ean be studied only in the single flower The moment n a rose be becomes comes double it loses its normal proportion tion of parts The summit of the flow flowering flowering ering stem Into a little cup which Is called the That se seems ms a very proper name in this case though Most flower are arc either flat fiat ot or convex The receptacle Is always S the top of the flowering stem and it affords a place of attachment for or the p parts of the flower It is In some sometimes sometimes times very large Jarge and sometimes very small In all roses It takes the form of a cup eup Upon the rim of this cup in inthe Inthe the sw sweetbrier sit tie five triangular green grein leaves called sepsis sepals The of the calyx as th these t five sepsIs sepals are raIled called is isto isto to protect the inner parts or of the flower Just Inside of the sepals and like them also sitting u upon On the edge or of the cup lUp are the live five petals pink delicate beau irs in color and exquisite in texture Within the nearer to the center of the flower are the ellow stamens outnumbering the petals man many times limes At the very ery bottom of the CUD eu and clinging to its sides as well are the carpels little tittle bodies which will In time contain the mature seeds Their tops protrude through the open cup and oo 00 cupy the center of oC the flower The cup Itself becomes fleshy and finally In au an autumn turns red as a sign that the s seeds ds in the carpels a es are rile rie Its b tI mp bush CO cov covered 1 ered nith this shining red is a v serri ry pretty sight Each globe looks good gool enough nough to eat but only the birds find it so and even the birds pass it b by when anything better can be had hadA hadA A rosebud just about to open is an t f exquisite beauty It has until now been wholly holl green showing only the r receptacle cup and the leaves of the calyx rowing growing close together But a athe as the impulse of oC life within makes itself felt the parts or of the begin to sep separate and a line or of sofe lovely pink gleams In space by degrees the or oien en enins log ins widens and in due time the are thrown back and the petals break breakout breakout out in all their matchless beauty The pink of Totes is an unstable c coor r it fades In the sunlight and to know the ravishing pink of oC a rose on one must see It when first it opens With all our wild roses the supreme moment of color is brIef Every rose in its wild State is the entire rose family pos possess sess in a remarkable degree the power of oC producing double flowers As the petals fn Increase rease the stamens lessen in humber and finally an ex double rose the car carrels is also abort This means that the double rose roseban ban lost the power of producing seeds and that the rower exists for beauty not for use The gardeners have done very little with the sw though hybrids have been produced which retained the and lost the spines but there are many better roses for the gardeners purpose The sweetbrier lives after Its wild will remaining In spite of domestication at heart one of thc th untamed primitives of the thc floral rohe sweetbrier to be bes s a if bj t t lff i on its st stems ms arid and branches These are galls made by the insect ro rosa of which a Considerable number occupying separate ells cells art are to tobe tobe be found in each moss mossy duster cluster These of course COune interfere with the growth of the plant and should be bc cut I from the bush bushes s in winter and burned for the do not leave them U until the following spring or early earb summer HARRIET L Copyright Syndicate 1905 b by the Nature Story I |