12 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



variety of conditions that prevail in Mexico favour the esta- 

 blishment of typical variations of one and the same species ; and 

 specific rank may fairly be claimed for them until cultivation 

 has revealed their consanguinity. Between frustranea and 

 variabilis there appears to be a great gulf fixed, but it narrows 

 rapidly under the observation of the cultivator. As regards 

 their relative fertility there is no essential difference, and 

 frustranea proves at last to be simply a more slender form than the 

 other, with a narrower foliage, a smaller flower, and a more con- 

 spicuous coating of whitish hoary efflorescence like the bloom 

 on fruit. In some such terms it is distinguished in the note 

 accompanying the beautiful figure of D. super flua in the 

 Botanical Register of 1815. When the Dahlia was as yet a rare 

 thing in the garden, it commonly grew to a height of six to ten 

 feet. Continued selection has enlarged the flower and dwarfed 

 the plant, but the bushy growth of three to four feet that renders 

 the plant at once stately and manageable is the result in great 

 part of the cultivation. In the old times the roots were saved 

 and planted entire, and the plants possessed enormous vigour ; 

 but now we strike cuttings from the first shoots, and take 

 cuttings from these again, and the result is a diminution of 

 vigour and growth ; but with this desirable accommodation of 

 habit we have an augmentation of the size and fulness of the 

 flowers. I remember well certain Dahlias in a garden that were 

 thought much of because of their exceeding tallness, for some of 

 them made stems fully ten feet high and required the support of 

 stout hop-poles. And once on a time some of them overhung a 

 fence on a road, and some boys were ambitious to obtain them, 

 because, perhaps, they were so far beyond their reach. But there 

 came along a party of acrobats, and with them a clown on very 

 tall stilts, and he plucked a number of these sky signs and threw 

 them to the boys, and secured for his company a few coppers 

 and many loud cheers that ensured the performers a welcome in 

 the next street. We do not see such plants at the present time, 

 but they could be reproduced in two or three years were they 

 needed and one step towards this undesirable end would be the 

 planting of whole roots and giving encouragement to free growth, 

 with suitable support for protection against wind. 



But the stature is much more determined by selection than 

 by cultivation. The raisers have favoured a dwarf, free habit, 



