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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



The Dahlia— the Flower of Myriad Forms and Shades 



EDWARD C. VICK 



IT is safe to say that no other plant suited to so many 

 different soils and locations, so easy for the ama- 

 teur and professional gardener to grow, and to be 

 obtained at so small a cost, equals the [dahlia on these 



n 



Field .^farshal. Hybrid Ciictn.'!. a shii-udid f^riiiiro.u- ycllorv. a 

 European production. Henry A. Dreer. 



points. .\nd seemingly there is no end. New forms are 

 constantly appearing and there are so many now that there 

 is no record, no knowing, how many different varieties 

 there are. 



There is one grower who has over fifteen hundred va- 

 rieties, and not far from him is another having more than 

 one thousand. Neither has two hundred varieties alike, 

 and in these two gardens are possibly two thousand dif- 

 ferent varieties, in addition, there are numerous other 



hyljridizers in New England, New York, New Jersey, In- 

 diana. Colorado. California, Oregon and other states con- 

 stantly bringing out new varieties, to say nothing of the 

 older producers in Great Britain, Holland, France and 

 Germany. 



The impression is erroneous that the many double-flow- 

 ered Dahlias are forms created by modern horticulturists 

 from the single-flowered type, Dahlia variabilis. W. E. 



Jean Kerr, Decorative, an early and sure bloomer, short fetaled 

 type, pure white. W. Atlee Burpee Company. 



Safford. iJureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, who has devoted considerable time to the 

 study of the Dahlia, is authority for the statement that in 

 ihe earlier illustrations of plants belonging to this genus, 

 made more than three and a half centuries ago, only 

 double-flowered forms are represented. Cavanilles, 

 in his work on the plants discovered by the Spanish navi- 

 gators, based the genus on Dahlia pinnafa, a plant with 

 double heads and identical in form with certain Peony- 

 flowered Dahlias of modern catalogs. 



Francisco Hernandez, the protoniedico of Philip II, sent 

 by his sovereign in 1570 to New Spain to study its re- 



Scorpion, Incurved Cactus, the narron' pclals gracefully interlaced, 

 flowers of medium size, clear yellow. J. K. Alexander. 



Misnoii Dahlias grow about eighteen inches high, of compact 



habit, producing a mass of brilliant colored dozvers. CItarles H. 



Tatty Company. 



