(1825)  Page(s) 174-175.  
 
Various Horticultural Notices Communicated by Mr. Murray, Lecturer on Chemistry, &c. to the Secretary,

1. Remarks regarding the Yellow Rose.
Perhaps a remark on the Yellow Rose (Rosa lutea, fl. pl.) may not be altogether uninteresting to the Caledonian Horticultural Society. It unfolds its petals irregularly in this country ; and there is nothing more rare, than to see a perfect evolution. It is even so in France, and equivocal in Italy itself; of which country I believe it indigenous.
The Yellow Rose, I was informed by a florist of central Italy, is generally imperfect even there, and is especially remarkable when kept insulated in the centre of a garden, but when placed close to a low wall, with an aspect to tlie east, it then succeeds well enough.
Some have attributed the failure to a too fertile soil ; others to other causes ; all equally hypothetical. In Italy, the rose-bud, when mature, is not unfrequently transferred to a caraffe of water, where it expands regularly.
I have made several experiments on the effects of a copious supply of water on the expansion of the flower-buds of the China Rose, (Rosa semperflorens), and have no hesitation in saying, that this will cause a prompt evolution of the petals, and in regular order ; in cases where, reasoning from analogy, the rose-bud would not have bloomed, or would have exhibited only an imperfectly expanded corolla.
The experiment in question, we may reasonably infer, will apply with success in the case of the Yellow Rose, and to other plants equally shy in the display of their blossom ; and the very circumstance of the bud freely expanding in water, offers a striking corroboration of the fact.