338 LUTHER BURBANK 



the original Dahlia variabilis. In any event the 

 new type has been crossed with other races, and 

 it now appears, like the others, in practically all 

 colors, with the single exception of clear blue, 

 this color alone seeming to be unwelcome to 

 flowers of the tribe, just as it is to the poppies 

 and the gladioli, both of which tribes show a 

 range of coloration strikingly similar to that re- 

 vealed by the dahlias. 



NEW FORMS AND COMBINATIONS 



My own experiments with the dahlias have 

 largely had to do with flowers of the cactus type. 



I have raised these by the hundred thousand, 

 and have produced some really fine forms that 

 have been introduced by Vaughan, Burpee, and 

 others. The modifications introduced have been 

 numerous, and some of them at least have con- 

 stituted rather notable improvements, notwith- 

 standing the elaborate development of this plant 

 by many earlier workers. 



In the course of these experiments I have 

 endeavored to give a new impetus to variation 

 and renewed vitality by hybridizing the culti- 

 vated forms with the species imported directly 

 from Mexico. To be sure, the dahlias originally 

 in hand are so hybridized to say nothing of the 

 original tendency to variation that there is 



