112 



EVERY 031 AN HER OWN FLOWER GARDENER. 



He gatnered the seeds and sent them to the Abbe Cavanilles, Professor 

 of Botany at the Eoyal Garden of Madrid, who succeeded in flowering 

 a plant in October, 1789, to which he gave the name of Dahlia pinnata, 

 in honor of Dahl, a Swedish botanist, a pupil of Linnaeus. Objections 

 were made to this name because it resembled Dalea, a name given to an 

 entirely different plant, in honor of Dale, an Englishman.- Professor 

 Wildenow, in his " Species Plantarum," calls it Georgina, after Georgi, 

 a Eussian botanist. De CandoUe and other eminent writers adopted 

 that title ; but the original name was the favorite, and still exists. In 

 1790, the Marchioness of Bute received some seeds from Spain, which 

 flowered finely, but not knowing how to treat the tubers in the winter, 

 the plants were lost. In 1804, Lady Holland sent seeds to M. Buonainti, 

 a practical gardner and skillful botanist; he cultivated them successfully, 

 and from those seeds almost all the various kinds of Dahlias have sprung. 



De Candolle obtained seeds, and in 1810 he describes only five varie- 

 ties of Variabilis, and three of Frustranea; but he had no double flower. 



The first double Dahlia was sent from Stuttgard to Mons. Yon Otto, 

 who raised one similar, in the Eoyal Garden at Berlin, in 1809. He 

 labored patiently to improve the varieties, and by 1816 had three more 

 double flowers; but not until 1820 could he show six double flowering 

 kinds. Now they are counted by the hundreds and thousands ; and it 

 would seem as if there were no limits to the improvement of it. Mr, 

 Paxton asks, " Who would have supposed, that from one comparativdy 

 insignificant plant, such endless, innumerable, beautiful varieties could 

 have been produced; and what may we not anticipate ? It is not un- 

 reasonable to expect still a greater improvement. May we not have com- 

 binations of those clear, rich, and exquisitely beautiful colors for which 

 the Tulip has been so long admired ? Perhaps, ere long, our fancy may 

 be gratified by seeing Dahlias with the shades of black and white associ- 

 ated in the same flower ; and the popular taste may be also gratified 

 with globular shaped flowers." 



A blue Dahlia was the ne plus ultra for which the florists strove, and 

 many watered their young seedlings with an infusion of indigo, hoping 

 thereby to give the desired cerulean hue. 



Mons. de Candolle considers yellow and blue to be the fundamental 

 types of colors in flowers, and that they are antagonistic, 1. e., mutually 

 exclude each other; the blue flowers can by cultivation be changed into 

 all shades of red, purple and white, while the yellow will pass into the ^ 



