198 The Amateur's Book of the Dahlia 



Lately, the English, also, have succeeded in 

 putting backbone into their incurved cactus, 

 keeping the slender petals of the type. British 

 Lion, of Pierrot colouring, holds his head aloft, 

 and looking at him you can almost see him 

 switch his tail! The petals twist and interlace 

 far more than do those of Pierrot, however, and 

 seldom do they show a tip of white. The new 

 Miss Margaret Stredwick, a glorious pink, is 

 probably at this date the finest incurved cactus 

 dahlia known, for with all the perfect points of 

 colour and form it has a stem almost as strong 

 as a walking-stick. 



It is a comfort to see weak-stemmed varieties 

 losing favour. It means that the short-stem- 

 in-a-milk-bottle exhibits will soon be a thing 

 of the past, and the dahlia will be seen at the 

 shows only in its own true dignity. 



Just a few years ago the dahlia world was set 

 agog by a wonderful pure- white peony dahlia of 

 great size called South Pole. Glistening like 

 the snows of its namesake, four times the size of 

 Queen Wilhelmina, which was even then beginning 

 to show deterioration, it was sought after by all. 

 I shall never forget the first bloom which opened 

 in my garden. Twelve inches across it was, but 

 with a stem which deliberately grew into an 

 inverted V (a)! It never bloomed there 



