THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



first form that he named he called Dahlia pinnata because its 

 leaves were pinnate or feathery; this (see Fig. 2) had semi- 

 double flowers, with the rays in four or five rows. Three years 

 later he named two more forms, or species as he believed them to 

 be, both with " single " flowers, calling one Dahlia rosea, because 



Fig. I. 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. I. The first known published figure of a dahha. One of the 

 figures published by Hernandez in 1651, under the Mexican name acocotli. 



Fig. 2. Dahlia pinnata Cav. The first dahha described and figured 

 under the name Dahlia. Copy of a part of the original figure, one half 

 the natural size, from Cavanilles, Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum, etc., 

 vol. I, plate 80; Madrid, 1791. This historic type of the genus Dahlia, 

 like the Hernandez acocotli, evidently belongs in the modern duplex class. 



its flowers were rose-colored ; "and another one D. coccinea, be- 

 cause its flowers were scarlet. But so many sports and varia- 

 tions soon appeared that botanists found it convenient to lump all 

 the knowni forms together and to call the whole thing Dahlia 



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