THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



That there are many different varieties of dahlias now in 

 cultivation in the United States is a fact that impresses itself with 

 much force upon a visitor at one of the dahlia shows now held 

 every autumn in New York, Boston, New Haven, San Francisco, 

 and other centers of dahlia interest. Professor F. H. Hall, of 

 the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, has recently 

 stated* that he has compiled a list of 6,500 names of cultivated 

 varieties, taking only those found in the catalogues of xA.merican 

 dealers. It has naturally happened that certain readily suggested 

 names, such, for example, as America, Bride, Dainty, Dorothy, 

 x^riel, and Gen. Pershing, have been applied more than once. 

 On the other hand two names have sometimes been given to one 

 thing, and distinctive trade names have been given to varieties 

 that are so near alike that they can be distinguished with much 

 difficulty. Yet the fact remains that several thousand perfectly 

 distinct varieties of dahlias are in cultivation in the United States 

 at the present time. 



Origin 



Dahlias are plants of American origin. It is believed that the 

 first known record of anything that can be recognized as a dahlia 

 occurs in Hernandez't volume on the natural history of Mexico, 

 published in 165 1. A brief description of the plant known to 

 some of the Mexicans as acocotli is there given, together with two 

 sketches, one of which is reproduced herewith. From that time 

 until 1789, scarcely anything appears to have been added to the 

 literature of the dahlia. In 1789 the Director of the Mexican 

 Botanic Garden sent seeds of wild plants to the Abbe Cavanilles, 

 Director of the Royal Gardens in Madrid, and that was the 

 beginning of the cultivated dahlias of Europe and the United 

 States. This Spanish botanist in 1791 named the plants Dahlia, 

 in honor of a well-known Swedish botanist, Andreas Dahl. The 



*The New Country Life, 32: 27-40. 1917 [Illust.l. To Professor Hall's 

 article the present writer is much indebted and to it the reader is referred 

 for a more extended treatment of the subject. See also paper by F. H. 

 Hall on "Dahlias and their Culture," Circular No. 43. N. Y. Agric. Exp. 

 Sta. 30 N 191 5 (reprinted in Ann. Rep. N. Y. Agr. Exp. Sta. 34: 672- 

 695. 1916). 



t P. 31, in Hernandez' Nova Plantarum, Animalium et Mineralium 

 Mexicanorum. 



286 



