Composite-—Dahiia. 237 
reintroduced till early in the present century. Little care, 
however, seems to have been bestowed upon them even then, 
for, until 1814, when some more plants were imported from 
France, we read of no progress having been made in raising 
new varieties. It was first introduced into France about the 
year 1800 and cultivated for its tubers; but it was not des- 
tined to become famous for-economical produce. Soon, how- 
ever, it engaged the attention of numerous horticulturists, and 
founded its reputation as an ornamental plant of the first 
Fig. 126. Dahlia variabilis. ({ nat. size.) 
order. In the wild state the central or disk florets are 
small, tubular and yellow, and the marginal or ray-florets only 
conspicuous and highly coloured in some shade of scarlet. But 
every successive sowing brought. forth new variations in colour, 
and gradually the disk-florets were metamorphosed, assuming 
the same shape and colour as the outer ones, until at length 
the ¢ perfect flower’ of florists was attained, in which all the 
florets are similar, forming an almost spherical head, erro- 
neously termed a double flower (fig. 126). The Dahlia indeed 
