Addisonia 61 



(Plate 223) 



DAHLIA "W. W. RAWSON." 

 " W. W. Rawson " DahUa 



Garden Hybrid 

 Family Carduac^aE Thistle Family 



This variety is a fairly good example of the "ball-shaped" type 

 of dahlias of the subdivision known as "show" dahlias, although 

 the flower-heads are larger, the florets less compactly and less 

 spirally arranged, the rays less perfectly cupped than in most of 

 the "show" dahlias of fifty years ago, and the variety thus ap- 

 proaches the "hybrid show" group. Varieties of the "show" 

 group are defined by the American Dahlia vSociety as having 

 "double flowers, globular or ball-shaped rather than broad or flat, 

 full to center, showing regular spiral arrangement of florets; floral 

 rays more or less quilled or with markedly involute margins and 

 rounded tips." Dahlias of the "show" type were the popular 

 dahlias of Europe and America, more particularly perhaps of 

 England and the United States, during a large part of the nine- 

 teenth century. Just when varieties with the ball-shaped flower- 

 heads and cupped or quilled floral rays, the most distinctive char- 

 acters of the "show" type, were first originated, is not clearly 

 apparent from the available literature, but it was probably before 

 1820. The term "show" was doubtless suggested by their popu- 

 larity and predominance in exhibits of cut dahlias and in the 

 earlier dahlia exhibits in Great Britain the term was apparently 

 made to include also flowers that would now be referred to the 

 "decorative" and "hybrid show" groups. In a list of one hundred 

 and sixty-seven briefly described varieties of double dahlias, pub- 

 lished in New York in 1835 in the first edition of Bridgeman's 

 "The Florist's Guide," the words "cupped petals," "quilled," 

 "ball," and "ball flower" are used in connection with only eight 

 varieties, but the possible inference that the remaining one hundred 

 and fifty-nine varieties would now be classed as " decoratives " is 

 probably unjustified. 



The variety "W. W. Rawson," which is commonly considered 

 one of the best dahlias of its class, was originated by the late Mr, 

 A. E. Johnson of Brockton, Massachusetts, and has been suspected 

 of being a cross between the "show" dahlia "Grand Duke Alexis" 

 and the "decorative" variety "Mrs. Roosevelt." According to 



