58 Addisonia 



variety was first catalogued in 1874 by Mr. Van der Berg under 

 the name Dahlia Juarezii. Nothing like it is known to grow wild 

 in Mexico and its earlier antecedents are shrouded in mystery. All 

 of the hundreds of varieties of cactus dahlias now in cultivation are 

 supposed to have been derived from this one root. Flowers of 

 Dahlia Juarezii were exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society in the autumn of 1879, under the name of the "cactus 

 dahlia," the name "cactus" being suggested by the resemblance of 

 its flowers to those of a cultivated cactus, Cereus speciosissimus DC. 

 The floral rays of the original cactus dahlia were but slightly tubular 

 or fluted, and by a curious ignoring of historical precedent, Dahlia 

 Juarezii would now qualify as a "hybrid cactus" rather than as 

 a "true cactus" dahlia. 



The dahlia "Miss Nannie B. Moor" was raised from seed by 

 Mr. J. J. Broomall of Eagle Rock, California, in the season of 1914, 

 the seed parent being his cactus dahlia "Prima Donna." The 

 variety was named in honor of the daughter of a neighbor and was 

 first introduced to the market in 1916. It has been grown in the 

 dahlia border of The New York Botanical Garden since 1919 from 

 roots furnished by the originator. The flower-head figured was 

 taken September 19, 1920, and was drawn in its natural size. 



A plant of medium height, commonly three to five feet high, 

 with moderately large fully double lavender-rose flowers of the 

 "cactus" type. The stems are smooth or nearly so. Most of the 

 leaves have three or five lobes or leaflets, the lowest of which 

 occasionally show one or rarely two basal lobules; the leaflets are 

 of a medium green, rather long-pointed, serrate-dentate, the teeth 

 cuspidate and the margins minutely ciliolate; the terminal leaflets 

 are elliptic, the lateral elliptic or elliptic-ovate, the upper surfaces 

 smooth, the lower minutely pubescent or sparingly pilose on midrib 

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

 inches broad, are deep and full, and are held erect on stiff pe- 

 duncles. The bracts of the outer involucre are usually six or seven, 

 long-lanceolate, acute, and foliaceous or moderately coriaceous. 

 The bracts of the inner involucre are mostly twelve to fourteen, 

 long-triangular-lanceolate, subacute, and membranaceous. The 

 ray florets, comprising all ordinarily visible in the head, number 

 usually one hundred and sixty to three hundred; their ligules are 

 oblong-elliptic, linear-elliptic, or linear-lanceolate, obtuse or sub- 

 acute, at first tubular through the involution of their margins, 

 later canaliculate and plane, and finally tubular in the upper half 

 and apparently acuminate through the turning backward of the 

 margins, the color lavender-rose, with traces of yellow at base. 

 The disk florets are commonly seventy-five to two hundred and 

 they are not exposed until very late in the development of the head. 



Marshall, A. Howe. 



