On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 15:39:48 GMT, (Shiva) wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 11:00:55 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

Re Rosa Canina:

Very nice. Can you direct me to a photo of this rose in a hedge? If you have one handy?

If you're being threatened by tanks, Shiva, I'd suggest building some
tank traps as well...


G Thanks, Dave, it is nice to be back home. And, yes, I do believe
that if some of my detractors had tanks I might have a problem.
However, the reason I wanted to see a picture is to figure out why it
is called a "dog rose." Do you know?

I read somewhere that this phrase was reserved in the early days for
roses that didn't have any medicinal purposes, or weren't particularly
pretty. Sort of like the phrase "going to the dogs". I guess it just
stuck to this rose in particular.

There's also the play on the botanical name as well. I don't know
which came first in the sort of chicken or the egg issue.