17 JUNE 1949, Page 20

Native Roses In one characteristic hedge a fine bush of

the field rose is growing by the side of a dog rose, both in flower, though the field rose is rather more floriferous and was in blossom earlier. It is, perhaps, surprising that the two sorts do not cross. They are so much alike that a large number of country people do not distinguish them. They notice only that some bushes have white, and the others pinkish, flowers. Now and again the dog rose will bear pure white flowers ; but the two sorts are not difficult to distinguish, and the dog rose is the sweeter. An attraction of the field rose is that the more slender, and often longer, shoots bend over in curves of a longer arc. Freely though both grow, they are surpassed in lustiness of growth, as in scent, by an imported species of which little is heard, R. Moschata floribunda, which needs the better part of a pole of geound to itself. Its flowers closely resemble the third of our native wild roses, the burnet rose, but no two roses could differ more abruptly in habit. They are the dwarf and giant of the family, one flourishing in sand, the other in clay.