70 
BOTANICAL INDEX. 
DAHLIA. Cavanilles. 
Type — Dahlia ( Stj ngenrsia) saperflua — Covnposiice. Asteracece. 
Synonyms — Georgina, (Willdunow.) Syngenesia, (Linnaeus.) 
Etymology — Dedicated to the memory of Andrew Dahl, a Swedish Botanist and student of Liniiteus. 
Generic Characters — Involucre, double; exterior, many-leaved; interior, eight-parted; receptacle, flat, 
chaffy ; flowers of the disk, tubular, hermaphrodite; those of the ray, ligulate, female or neuter; ache- 
ilium, naked ; leaves, opposite; roots, perennial ; habitat, Mexico. 
Description of Species — Dahlia svperflua, (Aiton,) — Cup 12 to 15, standing two rowed ; point skinned, clotted 
at the base and covered with scales underneath. Bottom of fruit set with longish skin, chaffy leaf, flat. 
Fruit fastened longish, reversed egg-shape, pressed together, and without seed crown. 
Dahlia variabilis, (Willdenow,) — Roots thick, spindle-like; stems knotty, fleshy, tufted at the ground, v>me- 
what wooded, hollow, with long and slender branches; height twocentimeters and upwards. Leaves large, 
irregularly divided into parts, with sharp pointed, oval, dented, and drooping leaf. Flowers are fixed on a 
shoulder, the stalk thirty centimeters long. Front the stem-plants the flowers were somewhat smaller, 
with an roundish-yellotv shade and a single streak of violet, red or orange-colored ray floweret, with sharp- 
rounded flower leaves. 
Dahlia rrocala. Fig. 201. Stem erect, fleshy, hollow, branched in the upper part ; lower leaves bipinuate, or 
tripinuate ; leaflets ovate, acuminate, obtusely serrate ; aehenia linear. 
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MAX DEEGEX, JR., II., BV WM. H. HANSCHE. 
Ml 
|ROM tl» e above species was the Dahlia cradled to its present perfected form 
and tlower. In 1784, through Vincent Cervantes, professor and director of 
l the Botanical Gardens of Mexico, it was sent to Madrid, to Cavanilles, a 
Spanish monk, and director of the Botanical Garden of that city, where it was 
also first given the name Dahlia, although later, Prof. Wildenow, who evi- 
dently had not ascertained the priority of Cavanilles, changed it to the then 
more used German term of “ Georgina," in honor of his friend Georgi, of St. Peters- 
burg, the name Dahlia, nevertheless, being the correct one. 
In the following years by cultivation and improved seedlings the colors and forms 
had multiplied, so that after twenty }'ears a much greater perfection was obtained. 
From Spain this Mexican plant journeyed to all civi- 
lized lands. In 1787, to England, in 1802, to France, 
and in 1804, was through Humboldt and Bonpland, 
brought to Germany. They were also the first to 
bring the seed of the red and orange colored varieties 
from Mexico to Berlin, where through Director 
Otto, of the Botanic Garden, it was hybridized and 
cultivated to larger proportions, and to whom the 
thanks are due for the lovely and beautiful changes 
it has received, although it had previously been 
known in Dresden since 1800. However, when Garden 
Inspector Hartwig. of Kalsruhe, in the year 1808, grew 
the first full one, its lustre-stroke was dated from. In 
1812, the Dahlia, through Gardener Vogel, of Weimar, 
was brought to Erfurt. In the same year Haage himself 
grew the first somewhat full flower, which was of a 
violet color, and pointed-leaf shape, at Leipzig. In 
1824, Christian Deegen,of Ivcestriz, with a collection of 
twenty Weimar grown plants, commenced the growing 
of Dahlias, which gave to the venerable old grower of the 
Koestrizer Dahlia race, in 1826, the first evidence of his 
superiority, after his industry and culture of this flower 
for 54 years. Now, at the advanced age of 84 years, he 
has lived to see it grown to perfection. 
Fig. 20i. Dahlia crorata. From 1830 to 1836 the English growers became 
masters of the cultivation. From this time on Germany was visited with success, 
and in Erfurt, especially, was this success to be questioned, when such principal 
growers as Schmidt, Haage, Tischinger, etc., stepped forward. In 1836 the first large 
German exhibition of Dahlia cut-flowers was held before the Jena Society of Natur- 
alists and Arts, by Christian Deegen,in Kcestritz, who had over 200 of his own sorts 
and cultivation on exhibition, of which there were, namely: the brilliant Grand 
Duke Alexandra Pauloirna, of a delicate flesh-colored white, and Alexander Humboldt , 
of a blood-red. Alexander Humboldt, who was present in person, expressed his 
gratification at now beholding this simple Dahlia, which he had brought from Mexico, 
in such lovely changes. After a brief time the English growers complained of 
their cultivation, in an exhibition of Dahlias at Stafford House, September 25th, 
1839, that their newest flowers had had the following defects, viz : Hanging flowers, 
