508 THE VILLA GARDENEB. 



flowers; but for private gardens, it may be sufficient to remark the following 

 particulars. The tubers, if kept dry, will retain their vitality for two or three 

 years ; and hence, if roots which should be planted in November are kept out 

 of the ground till the November following, and then planted and protected 

 from frost, and when they appear above ground put into greenhouse heat, 

 they will flower at Christmas. If not planted until December, they will 

 flower about the end of January ; and if not planted till January, they will 

 flower in March. In this way, by always having a stock of old roots, and 

 planting some every month in the year. Ranunculuses may be had in flower 

 all the year round. — {Ladies' Cornpanion to the Flower-Garden.) 



567. The Anemone is treated in the same manner as the Ranunculus. 



568. The Dahlia. — The importance that has within the last few years 

 attached to the Dahlia would render it easy to fill a volume with descriptions 

 of its various species and vai-ieties, and the details of their culture. Its history 

 is also somewhat curious, as, strange to say, though it has become so great a 

 favourite, and is so universally cultivated, the history of its introduction is 

 very obscure. It is generally said to have been introduced by Lady Holland 

 in 1804 ; but the fact is, it had been introduced many years before that period, 

 and was only brought from Madrid, in 1804, by Lady Holland, who 

 apparently did not know that it was already in the country. The first kind 

 of Dahlia known to Europeans (Z). variabilis, Dec.) was discovered in Mexico 

 by Baron Humboldt in 1789, and sent by him to Professor Cavanilles, of the 

 Botanic Garden, Madrid, who gave the genus the name of Dahlia, in honour 

 of the Swedish professor Dalil. Cavanilles 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 varieties known in the gardens 

 have been raised ; as it seeds freely, and varies very much when raised from 

 seed. In 1802, a second species (Z). coccinea) was introduced from France, in 

 which country it had been raised from Mexican seeds. A few varieties have 

 been raised from this kind, but they are much smaller than the others. It is 

 rather remarkable, that the two species do not hybridise together ; and the 

 first kind produces flowers of colours so different as crimson, purple, white, 

 yellow, orange, and scarlet, without hybridisation. Among all the colours, 

 however, displayed by these varieties, no flowers have yet appeared of blue, 

 and comparatively few of a pure white. These two species, and their varieties, 

 were the only Dahlias known in English gardens for many years; as though a 

 few kinds were introduced from time to time from France and Spain, yet as 

 they did not hybridise with the others, and were rather more tender, they 

 were not generally cultivated, and appear to have been soon lost. 



The Dahlia is a tuberous-rooted plant, which is propagated either by seeds, 

 or by division of the root. The seeds are chiefly used for raising new sorts ; 

 and they should be treated like tender annuals, being sown on a slight hotbed, 

 in February or March, and planted out in May. The plants rarely flower the 

 first year, but the tubei-s will form in the course of the summer, and may be 

 taken up in autumn with those of the old plants. When the plants are propa- 

 gated by division of the root, care must be taken that each piece has a 

 bud attached to it. These buds, or eyes, as gardeners call them, are not scat- 

 tered all over the tubers, like those of the potato, but collected in a ring round 

 the collar of the root. These eyes, wheu the tubers are in a dry state, are 

 sometimes scarcely perceptible; and to discover them nurserymen often plant 



