4 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



stance. Lady Bute followed the horticultural rule of her day, 

 which was that all foreign plants required to be suffocated in a 

 close plant-house; and, accordingly, the Dahlia was lost to 

 cultivation in this country within two years of its introduction. 

 Kew obtained it about the same time, and lost it in the same 

 way. Being a foreigner it was suffocated. 



But the plant had travelled to Paris, for in the year 1802 

 the Abb6 Cavanilles communicated seeds from Madrid to the 

 Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and to M. de Candolle at Mont- 

 pellier, and thus the flower was somewhat diffused in Europe. 

 From Paris seeds of Dahlia coccinea were obtained in 1802 by 

 John Fraser, nurseryman, of Sloane Square, who flowered them 

 in a greenhouse in 1804 ; and from those flowers the first figure 

 published in England was prepared, this being No. 762 of the 

 venerable Botanical Magazine. 



In 1791 was published at Madrid the "Icones et Descriptions 

 Plantarum " of the Abbe Cavanilles, and in it were figures and 

 descriptions of Dahlias, for Cavanilles is the author of the 

 genus which he dedicated to the memory of Andre Dahl, a 

 Swedish botanist and author of a work on the Linnsean system 

 published in 1784. Humboldt has the credit of introducing the 

 Dahlia from Mexico in 1789, but this is a falsification of facts, 

 because Humboldt did not set foot on the American continent 

 until February 1800, soon after which he did see Dahlias in 

 gardens in Mexico, and was greatly rejoiced thereat. 



The chronology sets before us two species of Mexican Acoctli 

 figured by Hernandez in 1615, and respectively named by 

 Cavanilles, in 1791, Dahlia pinnata and Dahlia coccinea. The 

 first of these became the Dahlia of the garden ; it is now known 

 by the appropriate name of D. variabilis, for it is beyond doubt 

 one of the most variable flowers in cultivation. In the produc- 

 tion of the garden flower, then, we begin with the achievement of 

 Cavanilles, who kept his flowers while other cultivators lost 

 them, and in the year 1791 had the good fortune to publish a 

 figure of the first double flower of which we have certain record, 

 he having obtained this as the result of his successful cultivation. 

 The now universally recognised generic name Dahlia was for a 

 time put aside, owing to a misapprehension, by Professor Willdenow 

 of Berlin, and the name Georgina was substituted in commemora- 

 tion of Professor Georgi of St. Petersburg. So late as the year 



