safford: notes on dahlia 371 



as 5000 feet, but have found them up to 7000, which is as high as I 

 have gone. I do not know how much higher they may occur. The 

 plants observed near Santa Lucia grow to a height of about 4 feet. 

 The stem is a dull greenish purple to purpUsh green, usually glabrous 

 but sometimes with scattering hairs toward the upper portion. Leaves 

 2 -pinnate near the base of the stem, i -pinnate or simple above; leaflets 

 of the lower leaves ovate acute, 2 . 5 inches long, i . 5 inches broad, 

 remotely dentate, sparsely furnished with short bristly hairs, which 

 are more scant beneath; rachis not exceeding 5 inches in length, often 

 very short; petiolules o to 0.75 in. long. The flowers are 2 to 3.25 

 in. broad, with 8 ray florets, the latter sterile and orange brown or 

 crimson in color, in some forms short and broad, in others long and 

 narrow with the margins recurved or revolute, giving to the flower the 

 appearance of a Cactus Dahlia, and contrasting with the other form 

 having broadly spreading flat rays rounded at the tips. 



From photographs of these contrasted forms it is evident that the 

 latter species is the true Dahlia coccinea of Cavanilles, the type figure 

 of which it exactly resembles. 



Dahlia maxonii Safford, sp. nov. Tree Dahlia of Guatemala. Tzoloj 

 (Kekchi); Shikor (Pokomchi); Quauhacocoxochitl (Nahuatl). 



A tall plant with vertical terete hollow stem 3 to 5 meters high and 

 5 to 7 cm. thick, at length becoming woody, with joints at intervals 

 formed by the clasping bases of the connate petioles of the opposite 

 leaves. Leaves membranaceous, pale green beneath, deep green 

 above, quite smooth or sparsely hairy, those of the inflorescence and 

 on the upper part of the stem simple or pinnate, those on the lower 

 portion of the stem bipinnate; leaflets lanceolate, terminating in a 

 long slender point, the terminal leaflet narrowed and the lateral ones 

 rounded and unequal at the base, with the blades more or less decur- 

 rent on the narrowly winged rachis, the margins dentate (the larger 

 leaflets with 16 to 18 teeth on each side), the lower pair often bilobed 

 and sometimes with an additional pair of small leaflets at the base, 

 as in several other species of the genus; leaves of young seedlings sim- 

 ply pinnate, with the rachis scarcely or not at all winged. Flower 

 heads peduncled, erect; peduncles 10 to 12 cm. long, those of axillary 

 heads somewhat shorter and subtended at the base by simple caudate- 

 acuminate leaf -like bracts narrowed at the base into a winged petiole 

 I or 2 cm. long; involucre composed of two distinct series, the outer 

 consisting of 5 green, fleshy, widely spreading, spathulate-ovate bracts 

 obtuse at the apex 10 to 15 mm. long and 5 to 8 mm. broad, the inner 

 of about 10 membranaceous diaphanous, oblong, scales rounded at the 

 apex, overlapping before anthesis, at length erect, 18 to 20 mm. long 

 and 8 to 10 mm. broad. Ray florets neutral, lavender-pinkish or lilac, 

 ovate, flat, widely spreading as in the cultivated forms of the "century 

 type," 4 to 5 cm. long and 2 to 3 cm. broad with the apex roimded or 

 abruptly pointed; disk-florets hermaphrodite, often sterile, tubular, 



