The Red Rose.
Also see: The Dog Rose, or Wild Rose - The Damask Rose - The White Rose - The Red Rose
Rosa rubra.
Another shrub common in our gardens, and the least and lowest of the three kinds of roses. The stalks are round, woody, weak, and prickly, but they have fewer prickles than those of the damask rose: the leaves are large: they are composed each of three or four pair of smaller, which are oval, of a dusky green, and serrated round the edges. The flowers are of the shape and size of those of the damask rose, but they are not so double, and they have a great quantity of yellow threads in the middle. They are of an exceeding fine deep red colour, and they have very little smell: the fruit is like the common hip.
The flowers are used. They are to be gathered when in bud, and cut from the husks without the white bottoms and dried. The conserve of red roses is made of these buds prepared as for the drying; they are beaten up with three times their weight of sugar. When dried, they have more virtue; they are given in infusion, and sometimes in powder against overflowings of the menses, and all other bleedings. Half an ounce of these dried buds are to be put into an earthen pan, and a pint of boding water poured upon them after they have stood a few minutes, fifteen drops of oil of vitriol are to be dropped in upon them, and three drachms of the finest sugar, in powder, is to be added at the same time, then the whole is to be well stirred about and covered up, that it may cool leisurely: when cold it is to be poured clear oil. It is called tincture of roses; it is clear, and of a fine red colour. It strengthens the stomach, and prevents vomitings, and is a powerful as well as a pleasant remedy against all fluxes.
