Both the Damask and the Provence roses are extensively cultivated in France and England for the purpose of making rose-water.
The Damask is very hardy, vigorous of growth, and abundant in bloom. Its shoots are full of spines, and its leaves of a light green. Its old original varieties are wholly eclipsed by those which the industry of the florist has produced from their seed. The following are among the best of these:--
La Ville de Bruxelles is a very beautiful rose, of delicate waxy tint and vigorous growth. Madame Stoltz is of a pale straw or lemon color. Madame Soëtmans is of delicate cream-color, tinged with buff. Madame Hardy is a large and very full rose of the purest white. It has but one fault,--that of sometimes showing a green bud in the centre. But for this, it would be almost unrivalled among white roses. Leda is of a blush tint, edged with lake.
There are but few new varieties of this family, as the double sorts do not bear seed freely.
_Rosa Alba_.--The parent of the Alba, or White roses, is a native of Central Europe. The species is so called from the prevailing delicacy of hue in its varieties, many of which are of a pure white, while none are of a deeper coloring than a bright pink. The original stock is spineless; but many of its progeny, in consequence, probably, of hybridization, have spines in greater or less number. The upper surface of the leaves has a glaucous or whitish tinge, and the shoots are of a clear green.
Félicité is a large double rose, of a delicate flesh-color, and a most symmetrical shape. La Séduisante is of a bright rose in the centre, shading into flesh-color at the circumference: it rivals the last in the perfection of its shape. Madame Audot is of a pale flesh-color. Madame Legras is a white rose of a peculiar delicacy, and very graceful in its habit of growth. The Queen of Denmark is of a clear rosy pink. Sophie de Marsilly is of a delicate rose-color, slightly mottled, and, when half opened, is a rose of remarkable beauty.
The Alba roses bloom abundantly, and form in masses a beautiful contrast, in their chaste and delicate hues, with the deeper colors of the French and Hybrid China roses. They rarely bear seed freely.
_Rosa Gallica_.--This rose draws its origin from the south of Europe, where its wild progenitor still grows abundantly in the hedges. It is one of the best known, and longest under cultivation, of all the species. We confess our strong partiality for it. It is perfectly hardy, compact in growth, abundant in bloom, beautiful in form, and rich and various in coloring. It will grow and bloom anywhere, and endures neglect with a patience unknown to most others of its race. Yet none better rewards a careful and generous culture. It returns a rich response to the care bestowed upon it; and, under high cultivation, the members of this group have no superiors in beauty. It is not, however, in favor at the present day. Roses of equal beauty, though, not of equal hardihood, and endowed with the one valuable quality in which it is wanting,--that of continuous or repeated blooming,--have, of late, supplanted it. We may as well say here, while protesting against the neglect into which the hardy June roses have fallen, that, of the so-called Perpetuals, a great many are undeserving of the name. Some, even with tolerably good treatment, rarely show a flower after the June blooming; and none will put forth freely and abundantly in autumn, without more pains in the management than most persons are willing to bestow.