250 GENERAL REVIEW. 



C. aurita, an old slender-habited plant like a purple Groundsel 

 (see ; Bot. Mag.,' t. 1786). C. lanata is a large-flowered rosy 

 species from Africa (see ' Bot. Mag.,' t. 53), and is doubtless one 

 of the parents of our present cross-bred races. Cinerarias are 

 readily propagated by seeds, which germinate very freely, and 

 self-sown seedlings often appear abundantly on the pot-tops. 

 Seedlings of excellent quality may be perpetuated from offsets. 

 Several species of Cineraria have yellow flowers ; and a race of 

 golden-blossomed hybrids of neat habit .would be invaluable for 

 contrasting with the purple, rosy, blue, or white kinds. 



Double-flowered Cinerarias were introduced to our gardens 

 from Germany in 1874, and Mr Moore thus alludes to them 

 in the ' Florist : ' " Double-flowered Cinerarias are not absolute 

 novelties, for we remember having seen exhibited in London, 

 in 1 86 1, by Mr Kendall of Stoke Newington, a variety called 

 C. rosea plena, to which a commendation was then awarded, 

 and which was a very pretty, compact-growing, double flowered 

 variety, with the flower-heads of a magenta rose. Whether that 

 was lost or not, or did not perpetuate itself, we do not know, 

 but it was not seen again in public ; nor has a double-flowered 

 Cineraria appeared since that time, so far as we are aware, till 

 this year (1874)." 



Dahlia (Georgina). A well-known genus represented in our 

 gardens by the varieties of two Mexican species D.frnstranea 

 and D. superflua. 



A correspondent of the ' Garden' (1874) gives the following 

 interesting history of the Dahlia : " The first mention of the 

 plants occurs in Hernandez, who published a history of Mexico 

 in 1651, and who figured two separate species. Menonville, 

 who was employed by the French minister to steal the cochineal 

 insect from the Spaniards, was the second to notice its exist- 

 ence. The first scientific description was given by the Abbe 

 Cavanilles from a specimen which flowered at Madrid in 1790, 

 who named the plant after his friend Andrew Dahl, the Swedish 

 botanist. The Dahlia was sent to Europe from the Botanic 

 Gardens of Mexico to the Royal Gardens, Madrid, where it 

 first flowered in 1789, from whence it was introduced to Eng- 

 land by the Marchioness of Bute in the same year ; but this 

 single plant speedily perished, and it did not again appear in 

 this country till the old single variety cocdnea was flowered by 

 Eraser, at Chelsea, in 1803, and figured in Curtis's ' Botanical 

 Magazine,' plate 762. This plant also perished. Meantime 

 Cavanilles sent specimens of the three varieties then known to 

 the Jardin des Plantes, in 1802, where they were successfully 

 cultivated; and numerous varieties were produced in France 



