THE CULTIVATED DAHLIA. 



By James Beitten, F.L.S. 



In the Journal of the Hoyal Horticultural Society (xlii. parts 

 2 & 3) published in September, Mr. C. Hai'raaii Payne (pp. 305-16j 

 gives a full and interesting account of the garden Dahlia, with Special 

 reference to " its reputed introduction in 1789." He had previously 

 published in the Gardeners' Chronicle fol* Sept. 23, 1916, the more 

 important part of the conclusions at which he had arrived, and 

 Dr. Kendle in the following number added some additional pal'ticulars. 

 I had more than once had occasion to examine the specimens in the 

 National Herbarium to which both wfitel's make reference, and it 

 may be worth while to print here the conclusions at which I arrived, 

 though these in the main agree with theil's, with a few additional 

 particulars on one oi' two points of interest. 



Mr. Payne has with much care and thoroughness examined and 

 destroyed the tradition — apparently traceable to Aiton's Hortus 

 Kewensis, ed. 2, v. 87 (1813) and repeated by all subsequent writere 

 who have dealt with the subject — that the Dahlia was " introd. 

 1789 by the Marchioness of Bute." The suggestion of Sir David 

 Prain that this statement originated in a misprint for 1798 — 

 confirmed, as he shows, by the substitution of the latter date for 

 the foniier in the Epitome, published a year latel* — is supported 

 by the fact that the Dahlia appeai-ed in a "'List of plants in 

 the Hort. Madrid, wanted for Kew Gardens ' and marked in Lady 

 Bute's book [at Kew] 1798." " There is nothing to show," says 

 Sir David, " whether the plants were actually received " ; but there 

 are three sheets in the National Herbariuiii, endorsed " C. G. Ortega 

 (Lady Bute)," which Mr. Payne says " were without doubt grown 

 at Kew and thus found their way into Sir Joseph Banks's her- 

 barium, of which they formed a part." In default of more definite 

 evidence, Mr. Payne's expression of certainty appears to me too strong : 

 the writing on the back of the sheets is not known to me — it is 

 probably that of one of the clerks employed by Banks, "Written when 

 the plant was placed in the Herbarium : other sheets, similarly 

 endorsed, are scattered through the collection, but in no case is there 

 anything to indicate that they came from Kew Gardens — the plants 

 having this provenance are usually endorsed "Hort. Kew." Mr. Payne's 

 reference to " the old inscription on the sheet " rather conveys the 

 idea that this forms but one entry : the name and reference to 

 Cavanilles are however in different hands from the endorsement — the 

 former perhaps in that of Sims, the latter added by Dryander. In 

 view of Mr. Payne's reference to the relation between the sjiecimens 

 and the figures and descriptions of Cavanilles, it should be noted that, 

 although carefully matched, the former are not ty})ical for Cavanilles's 

 species. 



My own interpretation of the specimens would be that Lady Bute 

 had a collection of dried plants from Ortega, the Curator of the 

 JouHNAL OF Botany. — Vol. oG. [FEBHfAnY, 1918.] u 



