"8 BULBS AND TUBEROUS-ROOTED PLANTS. 
created a most wonderful sensation, The fact of the 
Marchioness of Bute, one of the most enthusiastic 
patrons of botany, having introduced it into England 
from Madrid in 1789, was a sufficient indorsement of its 
beauty and usefulness, to make it at once one of the 
most popular flowering plants. When the Dahlia was 
first introduced into Spain, it was named by Abbe 
Cavanilles, director of the Royal Gardens, in honor of 
Dr. Andrew Dahl, a Swedish botanist. After that, Prof. 
Wildenow, of Berlin, laboring under the impression that 
the name adopted by Cavanilles had been previously 
applied to another plant, discontinued the name Dahlia, 
and substituted that of Georgina, in honor of Prof. 
George, of St. Petersburgh. For a number of years it 
was known under the latter name, and is so termed in 
some of Loudon’s writings. 
Its cultivation, however, did not become very gen- 
eral until the illustrious naturalists, Humboldt and 
Bonpland, in descending from the tableland in Mexico 
towards the coast of the Pacific ocean, rediscovered it 
growing on the prairies, at a height of nearly five thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea. The plants then 
discovered were transmitted to the botanical garden at 
Mexico, and in 1804 transferred to the various public 
gardens throughout Hurope. But little progress was 
made in their cultivation, or in the development of the 
species, for several years thereafter. The following 
account of the origin of the double forms we take from 
the ‘‘ History of the Dahlia,” by Robert Hogg, Esq., of 
London, published in 1853. 
“*Several cultivators on the continent, observing the 
natural disposition of the Dahlia to sport from its orig- 
inal form, began now to direct their attention to raising 
new varieties, and treating it as a florists’ flower. Many 
attempts were made to procure double flowers, but with- 
out success. In 1806, the gardener at Malmaison for- 
