its Species and VariHies. 43 



where it flowered for the first time in 1791." Cavanille (an 

 ecclesiastic and eminent botanist) dedicated the genus to 

 Dahl, a Swedish botanist, a disciple of Linne, and the author 

 of a work on bis " Systema Vegetabilium." " In the same 

 year (1791), he srave tbe description of three varieties sent 

 from Mexico, wbich he considered as three species^ con- 

 stituting the genus Dahlm, viz., pinntita, rosea and coccin- 

 ea" (J\iemoire sur h Dahlia, &c. pp. 3 — 4). In the number 

 for March, 1835, of this Magazine (Vol. I, p. 114), some ob- 

 servations were made on the restoration of the old name of 

 the genus, given by Cavanille, and altered from erroneous 

 impressions of its being already appropriated, strengthened 

 by a similarity of sound to Dalea, belonging to an entirely 

 different natural order and artificial class. Willdenow, in 

 his Species Plantarum, applied that of Georgina, after Georgi, 

 an eminent Russian botanist, and De Candolle adopted it, 

 apparently on such authority. With a similar desire of imi- 

 tation, or the universal mania after new names, the florists 

 of this country were fast falling into the supposed improve- 

 ment, regardless of the untenableness of one averred objec- 

 tion, and the gross impropriety of violating that rule of eve- 

 ry scientific nomenclature, — that the original name should 

 be sacredly preserved, to the exclusion of every other, un- 

 less founded on good and substantial reasons of real physiologi- 

 cal difference. It was with unfeio-ned pleasure that I there- 

 fore hailed the restoration of Dahlm, and trust that the dis- 

 ciples of the illustrious star of northern Europe shall confer 

 honor, and shed some reflected glory on the plant, which 

 was dedicated to his fame and memory. 



In the third volume of the "Annales du Museum," we find 

 a memoir on the Dahlm, by M. Thouin, accompanied by a 

 colored plate of three varieties, viz., rosea, purpurea and 

 coccinea, probably answering, at least in color, to the three 

 species of Cavanille, — rosea, pinnata and coccinea. M. 

 Thouin remarks that rosea was of the size of ^'ster chinen- 

 sis L. ; and from the plate, it seems to resemble a prototype 

 of " Queen of Naples," a somewhat old variety. One of 

 these varieties is figured with semidouble ffowers, — a fact 

 not a little remarkable, as this plate was issued in 1804, and 

 Count Lelieur mentions that not until 1817 could he obtain 

 even two or three double varieties ; about the same time, 

 indeed, that the Dutch florists began to procure theirs from 

 seed. A similar curious fact was observed in the difference 

 of seed raised at Anteuil and St. Cloud, the richer soil pro- 

 ducing only pure and simple flowers, whereas the thinner 

 and lighter soils of the former place was only prone to pro- 

 duce the seeds of double varieties — accounted for on the 

 philosophical principle, that it was a greater effort to pro- 



