Breeding 65 



The dahlia is well named "Variabilis." It is 

 unreliable to a greater extent than any other 

 type of flower, and brazenly defies nearly all the 

 laws of heredity. 



I wonder sometimes what conclusions the 

 great Mendel would have come to had he begun 

 his experiments with dahlias instead of peas. 



Unfortunately, of the thousands of beautiful 

 varieties growing in our gardens there are 

 practically no records which are of any real 

 value. There are no "family-trees" to study! 



We know that the dominant form or colour 

 persists in the seedlings, yet in the dahlia the 

 blood of ten generations back will reappear most 

 unexpectedly. I have fertilized a yellow dahlia 

 with pollen from a pale pink, and one of the 

 seedhngs was scarlet. I have pollinated a 

 blood-red dahlia with a scarlet, and have had a 

 flower nearly white. I have placed the pollen 

 of a hybrid cactus upon a peony and have had a 

 decorative among the seedlings. 



The best we can do is to follow the tendency 

 of the dominant colour or form. This law of 

 Nature is simple but, like the French grammar 

 of our school days, there are as many exceptions 

 as there are rules ! 



My own experience has been that the pollen 

 parent governs the size and form, and the 



