2 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



attempt would have been rendered superfluous. And it is but 

 little, for I make no pretence here to penetrate below the surface 

 of any part of the interesting subject proposed to me. The 

 exigencies of daily life leave no margin for a serious inquiry into 

 the full meaning of the changes effected in any flower by the work 

 of the florist ; but in a discourse of half an hour, with the help of 

 a few drawings and with examples of living flowers, I may at 

 least be enabled to entertain my friends with a slight attempt 

 at a scientific treatment of the subject. 



Wherein consists the difference between the Dahlia as it is 

 found growing wild in its native land, and the Dahlia that 

 embodies in it both the governing idea and the results of the 

 patient work of the florist ? An appropriate reply would be that 

 in the hands of the florist it has changed from an open star to 

 a closely packed rosette, while in size it has been enlarged and 

 in colour greatly diversified. A more comprehensive reply would 

 consist in saying that the florist began with a single flower and 

 endeavoured to obtain a double flower. In that he has succeeded, 

 and the task now before him is to advance the double flower to 

 a certain ideal standard of form and proportion, and when he 

 has attained to a realisation of his ideal his work as a florist 

 will have been completed. 



In considering the bearings of the primary question, the 

 subject naturally divides, on the historical side in one direction 

 and the biological in another. We must begin somewhere, 

 and history only can teach us where and how. I therefore invite 

 your attention first to a hasty review of the facts, as in various 

 ways recorded, of the introduction and progress of the Dahlia 

 as a garden flower in Europe, to the point where the florists 

 appear to have influenced it in view of their model of what it 

 should be to gratify their tastes and compensate them for its 

 cultivation. A fuller history than I shall now attempt formed 

 the subject of a discourse at the opening of the Dahlia Conference 

 of the National Dahlia Society, and may be found in the 

 Gardener's Magazine of September 7, 1889. To that I refer the 

 curious in the matter of historical facts, while for present pur- 

 poses I shall hope to leave nothing unsaid that in any way bears 

 on the question that is immediately before me. 



The first description of the Dahlia occurs in Francisco 

 Hernandez's treatise on " The Plants and Animals of New 



