60 Addisonia 



344. 1 904) . The first figure of an undoubted ' ' fully double ' ' dahlia 

 known to the present writer occurs on the colored plate 1885 B of 

 Curtis's Botanical Magazine, published in London in 1817, and it 

 is of interest to note that the flower-head there portrayed would 

 now be placed in the "decorative" group. The term "decorative'' 

 has been used by English dahlia-growers with rather more latitude 

 than is now the case in the United States, being made to cover also 

 what we now know as the "hybrid cactus" group and at times also 

 the "peony-flowered" group. 



"King of the Autumn" was originated by Mr. H. Hornsveld of 

 Baarn, Holland, and according to information supplied to the 

 writer by that gentleman, the variety resulted from Princess Juliana 

 as seed parent and America as pollen parent. It was first exhibited 

 in 1915, when it received first-class certificates from the Dutch 

 Horticultural Society and the General Bulb-Growers* Society of 

 Haarlem. It was placed on the market in 1917 and was first grown 

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

 from a root furnished by Mr. C. I,ouis Ailing of West Haven, 

 Connecticut. The flower-head represented in the plate was gath- 

 ered in September, 1920, and was drawn in its natural size. 



A plant of medium height or sometimes tall, commonly five to 

 seven feet high, with medium-sized, fully double (or sometimes 

 open-centered) flower-heads which are golden-rose, or buff-rose 

 and are typically of the "decorative" type. The stems are smooth 

 or nearly so. Most of the leaves have three or five lobes or leaflets, 

 which are light green, short-pointed, and coarsely dentate, the 

 teeth cuspidate and the margins also minutely cilliolate-serrulate ; 

 the terminal leaflets are elliptic, elliptic-ovate or oblong-elliptic; the 

 lateral are rather similar in form but are smaller and have a strongly 

 inequilateral base; the upper surface is smooth except for a slight 

 puberulence on midrib and veins, the lower surface is slightly 

 pubescent or sparingly pilose. The flower-heads are mostly four 

 to five inches broad, are rather flat, and are held erect on strong 

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

 seven, lanceolate-spatulate, subacute, and coriaceous. The bracts 

 of the inner involucre are mostly ten to twelve, triangular-ovate to 

 oblong-lanceolate, subacute, and membranaceous. The ray florets 

 are usually thirty to one hundred and twenty; their ligules are 

 broadly elliptic to narrowly elliptic and subacute, those of the 

 inmost series are more or less quiUed or cup-shaped, the next outer 

 concave, followed outwardly by numerous ligules that are plane or 

 nearly so, the outermost with margins slightly revolute with age; 

 their color is golden-rose or buff-rose, overlaid with terra-cotta 

 tints and towards the base light yellow. The disk florets are 

 commonly sixty to one hundred and forty. 



Marshall, A. Howe. 



