54 Addisonia 



was awarded to Messrs. H. Cannell & Sons of Swanky, Kent, for 

 their exhibit of dahhas, of which the only variety mentioned by 

 name (Gard. Chron. III. SO: 214. 1911) is "a huge bloom, seven 

 inches across, of Madame J. Coissard." Later in the same year, 

 the National Dahlia Society awarded a certificate of merit to the 

 same variety growing in its trial gardens at Swanley. 



The variety has been grown every year in the dahlia border of 

 The New York Botanical Garden, beginning with 1918, from roots 

 originally furnished by Mr. W. J. Matheson, of Huntington, New 

 York, and by the present writer. The drawing was made, natural 

 size, from a flower-head (perhaps rather more "double" than is 

 usual), taken on September 24, 1920. 



A low plant commonly two and one half to three and one half feet 

 high, with large semi-double crimson-carmine and white or cerise 

 and white flower-heads of the "duplex" type. The stems are 

 smooth or nearly so. The leaves are mostly simple, dark green, 

 the lower long-stalked, with three lobes or leaflets, the blades 

 elliptic-lanceolate to elliptic-ovate, short-pointed, or moderately 

 long-pointed, coarsely dentate and the margins also minutely cili- 

 olate-serrulate ; the upper surface is puberulent along midrib and 

 veins, the lower surface is sparingly pubescent or pilose on midrib 

 and veins. The flower-heads are mostly four and one half to five 

 and one half inches broad and are held suberect on ascending 

 peduncles. The bracts of the outer involucre are usually five or 

 six, lanceolate, subacute, and coriaceous. The bracts of the inner 

 involucre are commonly fifteen to twenty, oblong-lanceolate or 

 ovate-lanceolate, membranaceous, pale green or straw-colored. The 

 ray florets are commonly fifteen to forty-five in two to four series; 

 their ligules are elliptic, elliptic-obovate, or elliptic-ovate, recurved 

 at the rather obtuse or subacute apex, the inner sometimes narrower 

 and slightly curled or twisted, nearly plane or the outer sometimes 

 lightly convex, the colors being various shades, combinations, and 

 proportions of carmine, cerise, crimson, magenta, and white with 

 light yellow at the bases of the ligules, the reverse of the hgules 

 whitish or pallescent with longitudinal streaks of carmine or cerise. 

 The disk florets are usually about one hundred and thirty to one 

 hundred and fifty. 



MARSHAiyiv A. Howe. 



