THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORIST'S DAHLIA. 



13 



and Lave secured plants of such varying stature that they now 

 range in height from nine to fifty inches, these being nearly, if 

 not exactly, the two extremes. Nine-inch Dahlias are the very 

 latest novelties in the way of habit ; and a race of plants bearing 

 single flowers, and ranging from nine to twelve inches, has been 

 obtained by Mr. T. W. Girdlestone, of Sunningdale, and are to 

 be brought before the public as " Tom Thumb Dahlias." Surely, 

 if we consider the immense range of variation in both flowers and 

 plants, it must be agreed that Dahlia variabilis is appropriately 

 named, for it is probably the most variable plant in cultivation. 



A walk through a few acres of Dahlias of the several classes 

 now cultivated will impress the observer with a notion of infinite 

 variation, and yet further observation will show that the range 

 of variation is somewhat closely fenced in by the essential 

 characters of the species. To find two or three distinct cha- 

 racters in flowers on the same plant is no uncommon occur- 

 rence. We may even find flowers of two colours, say white and 

 red, so arranged as to produce the effect of two exact halves of 

 flowers of different colours united, the effect being ludicrous 

 when the colours strikingly differ. As to flowers with stripes and 

 tips, they vary in every imaginable way. The colours change 

 places, or one colour predominates, and we have selfs where we 

 should have stripes ; and odd blotches of strange colours appear, 

 apparently without any reason or purpose whatever. One of 

 the most interesting of many strange things I remember in Dahlia 

 culture occurred in the case of the variety known as Jupiter, 

 which appeared in the year 1858. It electrified the Dahlia 

 world, and men travelled miles to see it. The late Mr. Charles 

 Turner placed a bloom on the table at the great Dahlia show 

 in St. James's Hall, September 23, 1858, and averred that he 

 valued it at £5, and that it was worth more than that 

 amount to him as an exhibition sample. This wonder was a 

 dark flower, as dark as another favourite of that day called 

 Erebus. But Jupiter was tipped pure white, and with such 

 regularity, brightness, and purity as to have more the appear- 

 ance of a geometrical model painted with the severest precision 

 than a flower of any kind. But this wonder, though it was 

 allowed to exist for a few years, was true to its character for 

 one season only. When that particular season was past its glory 

 was over ; for the next year it presented more self-coloured 



