Late winter, early spring. That meant Cutty was looking for a thorn bush. One of the things that he appreciate about Professor Bentley was that she never wasted time in lessons going on about the beauty of flowers. She had the good sense to focus on utility of the flora world. In hindsight, however he could've used a lesson or two like that. Culloden had expected the students to gather one of their own ingredients and being that the ingredient was roses, Cutty could've used more experience.

What he did know what that they tended to be deciduous shrubs with thorns and so his eye was kept out as he traveled the little pathways carefully searching over anything that resembled his idea of a rose bush. Curiously, it was not his eye but his nose that told him to inspect a small patch of semi-naked shrubbery nearby. The late winter-early spring bore a rose bush with fragrant foliage. Cutty knelt down to pluck a thorn but was pricked in the knee by another specimen, this one though without the fragrant foliage. Without any foliage at all. The two thorns having been scraped off and collected into a phial, the Slytherin moved further away from the beaten path in a literal manner.

Up ahead there were taller bushes that looked like the remnants of garden architecture once upon a time. Perhaps part of a croquet field judging by the way they were spaced. There were a few smaller shrubs of the same variety and as he only needed one thorn, he chose a large and very hooked one. Cutty headed further into the shrubs and plant life until he found the pathway again. Or at least he thought it would lead to the main pathway needed to get back to the castle. The hill began to slope down and he nearly lost his footing twice, it had the fortunate effect of causing him to look down, however. And there, by the waters edge after a very steep slope were multicoloured bushes. Not all roses were deciduous, or perhaps they were kept ever-blooming due to magic. He went in for a closer look. A vibrant pink, an orange, a red and another pink that was almost lilac stood up, out and proud. Their strange vibrancy amidst the still waking plant life around it cause Cutty to suspect that they might have once been something else. Beings transfigured into rose bushes.

Would they bleed if he took a bit of their thorns?

They did not he found as he pressed with his thumb in a diagonal motion to remove one from each plant. Seven down, six more to go.