This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V25", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
The Eglantine Rose, so often mentioned in our American botanical works, appears to be different from what I remember it in England and France over forty years ago.
The Eglantine, "L'Eglantinier," has small bright dark green foliage, is a running rose - or can be made so. It bears single purely white flowers (the petals rather thick), with quantities of bright yellow stamens. The fragrance of the flower is de-liciously faint and sweet, while the Dog Rose, of Europe and of our own land, bears pink blossoms, some pale, some deeply colored, the largest and most brilliant I ever saw being those of Nova Scotia and Canada. The foliage is paler than that of the Eglantine, and scentless; the flower of much finer texture, and the fragrance entirely unlike the Eglantine.
The Sweet Briar, so common in Europe and so beloved by peer and peasant, bears a small insignificant pink rose, while its rough foliage, full of thorns, is valued for its fresh, pungent fragrance, retained even long after being dried. The Sweet Briar grows to be a tall, wide-spreading bush; in the summer perfectly covered with its tiny blossoms.
Again, with regard to the Eglantine, I have a vivid recollection of an Eglantine growing luxuriantly over a building on my father's estate in England, which was always known by that name, and the white flowers eagerly culled for their pleasant peculiar fragrance.
 
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