234 Account of the Genus Dahlia. 



season, will be semi-double, and will resume its better cha- 

 racter in the next. 



Such, and so numerous, are the varieties of the superflua, 

 or purple species ; and when it is considered that they are 

 the effect of, at the utmost, twelve years' cultivation, and that 

 much the greatest part have been raised within the last four 

 years, in the English gardens, all speculation is vain, on what 

 may be effected hereafter, or even in a very short time, in the 

 production of new changes and alterations. There is one 

 known variation of Syngenesious flowers, which has not yet 

 been attained, I mean that in which the tubular florets of the 

 disc become lengthened and quilled, whilst the florets of the 

 ray continue in their natural state. But I have seen one kind 

 of deviation from the general appearance of these plants, 

 which, if not unique, is certainly very unusual in this natural 

 order ; the rays throw out several processes resembling dis- 

 tinct petals, from the edge of the tube of each floret, and thus 

 each separate floret actually becomes a double flower ; the 

 compound flower has in consequence, a very full and broken 

 appearance. 



The frustranea, or scarlet, has not yet sported much ; the 

 three distinct varieties, originally described by authors, still 

 exist under the name of coccinea, crocata or orange, and 

 lutea ; plants bearing flowers with colours intermediate be- 

 t ween these, have been raised ; there is also one variety of it 

 calle&fulgens in the nurseries, the colour of which is much 

 more intense and brilliant, than that of the original coccinea, 

 and the plant is singular besides in possessing a stem unusually 

 tall and strong. It was raised by Mr. Johnson, a few years 

 since, in the garden of Mrs. Hatch, at Claybury Hall, in 



