THE ORIGIN OF THE "FLORIST'S DAHLIA. 



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Spain," published at Madrid in the year 1G15. The several 

 editions of this important work are described in the infallible 

 "Thesaurus" of Pritzel. For 130 years we hear no more 

 of the Dahlia, when it turns up again in 1787 in connection 

 with an interesting event. Nicholas Joseph Thierry de Menon- 

 ville was sent to America by the French Government of 

 Louis XVI. to obtain the cochineal insect and the plant it sub- 

 sisted on. His instructions were that he was to secure it ; and 

 the ethics of the case appear to have been of the ancient 

 diplomatic order. The expedition was successful ; the cochineal 

 was secured, and in 1787 Menonville published an account of it, 

 adding many particulars of other things he had seen or heard of. 

 Amongst events of interest, he had seen, in a garden at Guaxaca, 

 flowers that he described as large as Asters, on stems as tall as 

 a man, with leaves like those of the Elder-tree. Clearly he had 

 seen single Dahlias in Mexico, and the florists of that place and 

 time were content to grow single flowers, and possibly doted on 

 them. 



It may be said that the combined labours of Hernandez, 

 Menonville, and others had created amongst the botanists of 

 Europe a craving for this great Mexican Aster; and, if the 

 cochineal could be secured, so might the less profitable — but no 

 less interesting — Aster-like flower. Spain, as by right, obtained 

 the first gratification of the new desire, for in 1789 a parcel of 

 seeds of the coveted plant was sent to Madrid by Vincentes 

 Cervantes, Director of the Botanical Gardens of Mexico, to be 

 grown by the Abbe Cavanilles, Director of the Botanical Garden 

 at Madrid. Then it was that England secured a share of the 

 prize, and the name of Lady Bute was immortalised in connection 

 with the introduction of the beautiful novelty to English gardens. 



It is fortunate we have nothing to do with politics in this 

 history, for although they might come in, and a mixture of 

 French Revolution, Pitt, Burke, Bute, and even the Bastille 

 might follow, we can avoid them all by remembering that Lady 

 Bute, to whom we are in this matter peculiarly indebted, was 

 an enthusiastic gardener, and obtained seeds of the new plant 

 from Lord Bute, who was then diplomatically employed at 

 Madrid ; and thus the first cultivator of the Dahlia in England 

 was a lady, who, so far as I know, is as yet uncommemorated, 

 except in some such poor way as the mention of this circum- 



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