not very consistent, as well as a certain color-range. The Frankfort rose had reached England and perhaps America. R. gallica had produced the Velvet rose, single and double.
     There were others, but these are enough to show that already new forms had appeared and roses were attracting attention. The Malmaison collection awakened a sudden popularity for the rose which was in itself a demand for more and more kinds of roses. Garden groups were mixed together; results came rapidly, and new varieties were speedily spread abroad. In old gardens, here, dating back to those years, these hybrids are met. They seem to outnumber the surviving type forms and the earliest variations. That is not difficult to understand. The first fifty years of the last century were years of great expansion.
     These surviving hybrids present problems in identification because, they display in their physical features that they are partly one kind and partly another, or even two others. And so they are. Rarely, however, are they lacking a dominating set of features. The problem is to work out what kind dominates, and by this dominance of a kind to classify. Often there shows up some outstanding characteristic such as velvety petals, peculiar shadings, stripes, picotee edges, waxy petals, definite or unusual fragrance, great neatness of petal arrangement, or a marked irregularity, as in old Cinnamon rose. There might be an excess of prickles or an absence of them, as in the Boursault roses. Moss on a Moss rose may be reddish or brownish instead of green, or lacking glands, the moss may have the form of crests of bristles as in R. centifolia cristata. Foliage may have a distinguishing color, may have or not have pubescence, may have a matty or a glistening surface. Such details are aids.
     Very few records exist of roses used to create new varieties, and these cannot always be assured. I remember reading in some old book that the breeder recognized that even though he deliberately put the pollen of one rose upon the stigma of another, his results might be influenced by some other impregnating factor. Recourse in solving the problem is to the plant itself, and this is not a new idea. A hundred years ago nurserymen who grew roses for the trade and classified their hybrids for their catalogues had to do what we try to do. Fortunately, we have, as they had, the early forms of old garden species to