30 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



the doubles only, but for all kinds of dahlias, including 

 the pompons and lilliputians, that are so signally service- 

 able for decorative purposes. Thus the single dahlias have 

 accomplished some good in their new career, and while so 

 employed have made a triumph of another kind, and one 

 considered to be on the verge of the impossible : they 

 have given society a new pleasure ! 



The dahlia was introduced from Mexico in 1 789, and 

 was named after Dahl, the Swedish botanist. There hap- 

 pens, however, to be a genus of fabaceous plants named 

 Dalea, and, to prevent confusion, the new arrival from 

 Mexico was renamed Georgina. But Dahl prevailed ; the 

 confusion that was feared never happened, and the disused 

 name Georgina is still at the service of the botanists when 

 events shall make excuse for using it. The first species of 

 dahlia introduced was that called superflua, which does not 

 mean that the plant is, in colloquial terms, " superfluous," 

 but that it belongs to the Linnsean section of composites 

 called Syngenesia mperjlua, in which the florets of the 

 exterior differ from those of the centre of the flower. 

 This same Dahlia superflua has been renamed variabilis 

 and crocata, the first of these two being now generally 

 adopted as indicating the variable nature of the plant to 

 which we are indebted for our magnificent series of garden 

 dahlias. 



There is no risk incurred in the broad statement that 

 the dahlia is entitled to stand in the very front rank of 

 garden flowers. There is nothing easier to grow ; there is 

 nothing to which it may be properly compared that so 

 rarely fails to satisfy ; and there is absolutely nothing that 

 could take its place for the same season, were it blotted out 

 of existence. A plantation of dahlias will keep flowering 



