86 On the different Species of Dahlia. 



scientifically, naming it in honour of Andrew Dahl, a 

 Swedish Botanist, with the specific title of Pinnata. After- 

 wards, in the third volume of the same work, he makes us ac- 

 quainted with two more species; his Rosea, which from this 

 ambiguous title has been confounded both here and af Paris, 

 with his first; and his Coccinea, no less absurdly so denomi- 

 nated, its ligulated florets varying from yellow to orange, but 

 never assuming a scarlet tint. My reasons for adopting his 

 generic, but none of his specific names, will be given here- 

 after, and are conformable to the usage of Linnaeus in those 

 classical works, Flora Lapponica and Hortus Cliffortianus. 



These three Dahlias having been sent to Paris from Madrid 

 by Cavanilles in 1802, a very ample memoir with coloured 

 figures was published two years afterwards by Monsieur 

 Thou in, in that celebrated national work the Annates du 

 Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and he makes the fourth writer 

 upon them. We there learn that they are perennials, losing 

 their stems at the approach of winter, which do not push 

 forth again till late in spring ; that their roots consist of 

 fleshy tubers disposed like those of the Asphodel, though 

 less numerous ; that on their arrival they were planted in 

 large pots of strong earth, and protected from frost under a 

 frame ; that the stems grew little till the great heats of sum- 

 mer commenced, when they lengthened rapidly, and flow- 

 ered in the end of autumn. Monsieur Thou in then de- 

 scribes the first, his Dahlia Rose, as attaining seven feet m 

 height; leaves opposite, composed of from 5 to 9 leaflets: 

 flowers about the size of a China Aster ; ligulated florets 

 commonly 8 in number, pale red inclining to flesh colour; 

 of which all the earlier flowers ripened seeds. The second, 

 his Dahlia Ponceau, was only four feet high ; stem slender, 



