THE DAHLIA : ITS REPUTED INTRODUCTION IN 1789. 309 
The chronological arrangement of the events in their proper 
sequence presents some little difficulty in order that the story may 
read coherently, but every effort will be made to prevent the reader's 
attention being drawn aside from the main issue. 
Among the references in periodical literature the first will be found 
in the "Botanical Magazine." Dahlia coccinea, as already noted, is 
there figured and described, but there is an absence of any reference 
to a previous introduction. 
In " Andrews' Botanist's Repository," vol. vi. (1805), pi. 408, there 
is a coloured figure of D. pinnata in its single form, not semi-double 
as shown in Cavanilles' and Thouin's illustrations, which is said to 
have been " raised from seeds sent from Madrid last spring by Lady 
Holland, and flowered last September and October in the open ground 
in her ladyship's collection at Holland House." Vol. vii. pi. 483 shows 
D. pinnata nana, which had then been seen for four years. In neither 
case do we get the faintest allusion to the Bute introduction. 
" The Paradisus Londinensis, " vol. i. pt. i. (1806), gives three plates 
of Dahlias dated 1805. The descriptions in that work are by Richard 
Anthony Salisbury, and he too omits any reference to previously 
known Dahlias. 
In Alexander McDonald's " Complete Dictionary of Gardening," 
1807, vol. ii. (after the letter Z, the work is unpaged), there is a com- 
munication from Mr. Buonaiuti, librarian (there called "gardener") 
to Lord Holland, reproduced also in the " New Flora Botanica," 1812, 
in which he gives an account of the genus Dahlia and of the species 
that had then been described by Cavanilles, Thouin, Andrews, and 
Salisbury, and relates short particulars of the receipt from Lady 
Holland of Dahlia seeds in 1804, which she sent home from Spain. 
It is evident that Mr. Buonaiuti (whose name has often been a source 
of trouble to many writers, judging by their vagaries in the spelling 
of it) was aware of the first introduction, for, although he makes no 
mention of the name of Lady Bute, he says : " The first Dahlias 
introduced into England were lost by taking too much care of 
them." 
A year later Richard Anthony Salisbury, in a paper read by him 
at the Horticultural Society of London (see " Hort. Trans." vol. i. p. 84), 
gives an historical account of the Dahlia, the best and fullest up to 
that time, 1808. After dealing with the Continental aspects of the 
flower and describing the genus, species, and varieties botanically, he 
writes : "I must now venture to give some account of the introduction 
of the Dahlias into our own land." He commences by saying that 
the first of the species he had described was introduced by Lady 
Holland in 1804, quite ignoring Lady Bute and her alleged introduction 
in 1789. This is remarkable, for the paper is a very comprehensive 
one and he was an authority of no mean order. It may be observed 
that this paper has formed the groundwork for several later writers 
to build up their accounts of Dahlia history. 
It will be seen that we are still confronted with the same statement, 
