A NEW DAHLIA OF INTEREST 
TO PLANT BREEDERS 
E. SAFFORD, of the Bureau 
of Plant Industry, has pub- 
. lished in a recent issue of the 
Journal of the Washington 
Academy of Sciences (July 19, 1919), 
descriptions of two new dahlias from 
Guatemala, one of which, D. popenovii, 
should be of more than ordinary in- 
terest to plant breeders who are work- 
ing with this genus. According to Mr. 
Safford, thi 
ancestor of | 
a group der 
The latter sj 
to have orig 
America thro 
cnovu and si 
Mr. Saffo 
revision of | 
a view to d 
relationships 
“In nearly 
genus Dahli 
different vat 
from the hor! 
according to 
under such | 
anemone-flov 
fancy, decor: 
cactus dahlia 
single-flowere = 
species (except perhaps in Dahlia 
coccinea and Dahlia imperialis) or at- 
tempting to connect the ‘duplex’ and 
double forms with their primitive single 
ancestors. It is very probable that the 
types upon which several species have 
been based were hybrid plants. Dahlia 
pinnata itself, the type of the genus, 
was probably a hybrid. In the Index 
48 
IKewensis its name is discarded as a 
synonym for the subsequently described 
D. variabilis. In the same way the 
handsome Dahlia juaresti with large 
double heads composed of strap-shaped 
florets having their edges turning back- 
ward, in sharp distinction to the 
involute or quilled floets of the artifi- 
cial-looking ‘pompon dahlias’ and the 
flat-raved heade of thea 
, 
“pestis 
hroaad 
cardinal in color. It difters trom the 
closely allied Dahlia coccinea in the 
shape of the ray florets and the scales, 
and in the character of its leaves. 
This new dahlia is being propagated 
by the Office of the Foreign Seed and 
Plant Introduction of the Bureau of 
Plant Industry, by which it was intro- 
duced from Guatemela. 
