Cattle delight to chew the leaves, which,
when crushed, give out a fragrance like sweet birch.
WILD ROSES
(Rosa) Rose family
Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for the
rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the
wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive
ancestor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its
kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our
fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five
petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state
of nature; and although the progressive gardener of today has
nowhere shown his skill more than in the development of a
multitude of petals from stamens in the magnificent roses of
fashionable society, the most highly cultivated darling of the
greenhouses quickly reverts to the original wild type, setting
his work of years at naught, if once it regain its natural
liberties through neglect.
To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the
rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp
prickles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely
surface appliances which peel off with the bark.
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