50 Addisonia 



twelve hundred and twelve "double" varieties. In the United 

 States, we find in a special dahlia list published in New York by- 

 George C. Thorburn in 1840 three hundred and thirty-six "double" 

 varieties of what are now known as the "decorative" and "show" 

 types. The earliest American dahlia list known to the present 

 writer is in a "Catalogue of ornamental trees and shrubs, herba- 

 ceous and greenhouse plants, cultivated and for sale by Thomas 

 Hogg, nurseryman and florist, at the New York Botanic Garden in 

 Broadway,* near the House of Refuge," printed in New York in 

 1834. This list of sixty-five varieties includes no descriptions, 

 except indications of color. A footnote states that early in the 

 spring, there will be an addition "of fifty of the finest and best varie- 

 ties from England." 



The variety Dahliadel Century was originated by Warren W. 

 Maytrott of Vineland, New Jersey, and was first offered to the 

 public in 1 9 1 8 . Its parentage is unknown. 



It is one of several closely related yet fairly distinct white single- 

 flowered varieties, some of the others being Bride, Newport Angel, 

 White Century, and White Lady. It was first grown in the dahlia 

 border of The New York Botanical Garden in the season of 1918, 

 from roots supplied by the originator. The drawing was made, 

 natural size, from a flowering branch taken September 14, 1920. 



A vigorous plant ordinarily four to six feet high, with large white 

 "single" flower-heads. The stems are smooth. The lower leaves 

 are more or less bipinnately parted, with usually five or seven 

 primary lobes or leaflets, with small accessory alar lobes at the bases 

 of the stalks of the lower pairs; the leaflets are dark green, short- 

 pointed, and rather coarsely dentate and ciliolate-serrulate, the 

 teeth cuspidate; the terminal leaflets or lobes are somewhat elliptic, 

 the laterals are mostly lanceolate or ovate; the upper surface is 

 puberulent along midribs and veins, the lower is pubescent on 

 midribs and veins. The flower-heads are mostly four or five inches 

 broad, erect, on strong peduncles. The bracts of the outer in- 

 volucre are usually six, seven, or eight in one series, with suggestions 

 of a second ; they are ovate in the young bud, becoming spatulate 

 in the opened head, their texture is coriaceous and their points 

 obtuse or somewhat acute. The bracts of the inner involucre are 

 commonly eight or nine, membranaceous, lanceolate or oblong- 

 lanceolate, pale green or straw-colored, and obtusely pointed. The 

 ray florets are usually eight or nine ; their ligules are elliptic, blunt- 

 pointed, slightly concave, and pure white, with a tinge of yellow at 

 base. The disk florets are usually one hundred and twenty-five to 

 one hundred and fifty, their orange corollas and opening anthers 

 forming a pleasing contrast to the white of the ligules. 



Marshall A. Howe. 



* Southeast corner of Twenty-Third Street. 



