THE DAHLIA 215 



adherents were not there to fill up. Thus each succeeding year 

 would have seen a smaller army. We take this view because we 

 note the advance of garden Roses, Sweet Peas, Chrysanthemums 

 and Michaelmas Daisies, the rivalry of which with Dahlias would 

 have grown keener and keener every year. As it is, the Dahlia 

 has taken a fresh lease of public favour. There are more growers 

 for show than ever there were. True, the exhibitions have changed 

 their character somewhat. The classes for Show and Fancy 

 flowers are not so important as they used to be, while those for 

 Cactus varieties have grown greatly in interest ; but shows are at 

 least as big as they were in the old days, and they are certainly 

 more varied and beautiful. There has been a tenfold increase in 

 the number of people who cultivate Dahlias as garden plants. 

 People grow Cactus Dahlias who never would have grown a Show 

 variety. And thus recent developments have strengthened the 

 Dahlia enormously. It ranks well among the first half-dozen 

 plants of the flower garden a state of affairs that could not have 

 been expected in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 



The Dahlia came to us from Mexico in 1789, so that it is 

 quite an old plant in British gardens. Its name was chosen as 

 a compliment to a Swedish botanist named Dahl, but growers 

 did not pay him the additional compliment of pronouncing his 

 name correctly, and so confusion threatened to grow up with an 

 existing genus called Dalea, doubtless in honour of a person 

 named Dale. Dahl Dale; Dahl-ia Dale-a. Surely the names 

 suggest different pronunciations? But no. Dahl-ia was mispro- 

 nounced as though it were Dale-a. An attempt was made to 

 change the name, and it was called Georgina. According to some 

 authorities, this was due to an error on the part of a German 

 botanist. Others attribute it to the fact that purists were irritated 

 about the mispronunciation. In the end Dahlia was adhered to 

 in this country, inaccurate pronunciation and all. That no real 

 trouble arose may be attributed to the fact that the genus Dalea 



