CHAPTER V. 
THE DAHLIA. 
DAHLIA is a native of Mexico, 
where Baron Humboldt found it 
growing in sandy meadows several 
hundred feet above the level of the 
sea. It was brought to England 
in 1789, but was neglected and the 
genus lost. It ornamented the 
royal gardens of the Escurial, at 
Madrid, for several years before 
Spanish jealousy would permit it to be introduced into 
other countries of Europe. It derives its name from a 
‘countryman of the celebrated Linnoeus, Prof. Andrew 
Dahl, a Sweedish botanist; he presented it in 1804 to 
Lady Holland, who was its first successful English culti- 
vator. Cavanilles, of the Botanical Garden, Madrid, 
sent a plant of it the same year to the Marchioness of 
Bute, who was very fond of flowers, and who kept it in 
the greenhouse. From this species nearly all the varie- 
ties known in the gardens have been raised, as it seeds 
freely, and varies very much when raised from seed. 
Among all the colors, however, displayed by these varie- 
ties, no flowers have yet appeared of blue, and are not 
likely ever to be, as we find no family of plants in nature 
