14 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than tipped flowers, and those that were tipped were irregular 

 and deficient in purity. It was a nine days' wonder, but while 

 it lasted it was a real wonder and a memorable Dahlia. 



The florist's Dahlia is in a peculiar sense the creation of the 

 florist. Not one of the many other flowers on which he has 

 operated with an ideal form in view, has been so distinctly 

 modified and removed to a distance from its original state as 

 this, and it is amusing at least, whatever else may be said about 

 it, to see that the work of a hundred years is threatened with 

 annihilation by the growth of a preponderating taste for the 

 simpler forms that most truly represent nature's idea of a perfect 

 Dahlia. But we need not fear for our grand show flowers ; they 

 will always command admiration, and will be worth keeping if 

 only to illustrate the power of man in modifying organic forms, 

 and of impressing on the world around him visible embodiments 

 of his own abstract notions. 



SINGLE AND DECORATIVE DAHLIAS. 



By Mr. T. W. Girdlestone, M.A., F.L.S., F.R.H.S. 



There is always a danger in regard to florist's flowers, that the 

 florist, raising and selecting seedlings with one aim and object 

 only in view, may effect the development of the flower in the 

 matter of size or form at the expense of other essential qualities 

 in the plant. No one who has ever cultivated so-called florists' 

 flowers of any kind whatever, will have the least difficulty in 

 recalling numerous instances in which varieties, whose indi- 

 vidual flowers may have been all that the specialist could 

 desire, nevertheless proved anything but decorative garden 

 plants. The Dahlia has not entirely escaped this danger, for 

 although, owing to the naturally abundant vitality of the plant, 

 Dahlias of weak constitution are practically unknown, yet in 

 some cases the strength of the flower-stem has been unable to 

 keep up with the development in size and rotundity of the 

 flowers, so that those assuming a more or less pendulous position 

 are quite ineffective on the plant, and for the same reason are 

 even more top-heavy and undesirable in the cut state. 



It was probably owing to some extent to this cause that a 



