in Botany. See Rosa.
Essence of ROSES. See ROSES, Oil of.
ROSE of Jericho, so called because it grows in the plain of Jericho, though it did not originally grow there. It has perhaps been so named by travellers who did not know that it was brought from Arabia Petraea. Rose bushes are frequently found in the fields about Jericho; but they are of a species much inferior to those so much extolled in Scripture, the flowers of which some naturalists pretend to have in their cabinets.
"The rose shrub of Jericho (Laws Mariti) is a small plant, with a bulbous root, about an inch and a half in length. It has a number of stems which diverge from the earth: they are covered with few leaves; but it is loaded with flowers, which appear red when in bud, turn paler as they expand, and at length become white entirely. These flowers appear to me to have a great resemblance to those of the elder-tree; with this difference, that they are entirely destitute of smell. The stems never rise more than four or five inches from the ground. This shrub sheds its leaves and its flowers as it withers. Its branches then bend in the middle, and, becoming entwined with each other to the top, form a kind of globe. This happens during the great heats; but during moist and rainy weather they again open and expand.
"In this country of ignorance and superstition, people do not judge with a philosophical eye of the alternate flowering and opening of this plant: it appears to them to be a periodical miracle, which heaven operates in order to make known the events of this world. The inhabitants of the neighbouring cantons come and examine these shrubs when they are about to undertake a journey, to form an alliance, to conclude any affair of importance, or on the birth of a son. If the stems of the plants are open, they do not doubt of success; but they account it a bad omen to see them shut, and therefore renounce their project if it be not too late.
"This plant is neither subject to rot nor to wither. It will bear to be transplanted; and thrives without degenerating in any kind of soil whatever."