Dahlia Classification 
IN all groups of cultivated plants, especially those in 
which new varieties easily and quickly arise, con- 
fusion of names is almost certain to occur. This con- 
fusion it is the province of a nomenclature committee to 
prevent or to rectify ; and the earlier in the development 
of the group the work of such a committee can begin the 
greater the share of its energies it can devote to preven- 
tion of confusion, the less time need it spend in rectifica- 
tion, and the more satisfactory will be the final result of 
its efforts. 
With the Dahlia — according to the Bulletin of the 
American Dahlia Society — this important work has been 
almost overlooked for what is now nearly a century of 
growth of the flower in America; so that the elimination 
of incorrect and unnecessary names for Dahlia varieties 
( and the weeding out of unworthy kinds that should ac- 
company nomenclatural work), is now an almost im- 
possible task. However, much can be done if all the 
members of the society will aid by furnishing sugges- 
tions and information. 
The first step taken by the committee has been to pro- 
pose a scheme of classification of Dahlias, by which the 
broad groups of flower forms, into which the horti- 
cultural species divides, are defined and named. This 
scheme has been accepted, with slight modifications, by 
the executive committee of the society, and is now pre- 
sented to the members for criticism and suggestion. It is 
the hope of the members of both committees that this 
scheme, in its final form, may be adopted by all Dahlia 
growers in America for their catalogues and by show 
authorities for their prize lists ; so that the broad terms, 
"single," "duplex," "show," "pompon," "decorative," 
"cactus," "paeony-flowered," and the like, as applied to 
Dahlias, may acquire a definiteness and fixity that will 
make a little more certain than has been the case in the 
past the use of these terms in Dahlia literature. 
But the real work of the nomenclature committee has 
hardly yet begun ; which is the attempt to insure, so far 
as possible, that each name given a Dahlia variety shall 
represent a definite idea. Then two persons, reasonably 
familiar with Dahlias, will be able to feel some confidence, 
when either speaks or writes of a variety, that the other 
will have in mind the same flower. Now, hundreds of 
chances for confusion exist. 
These nomenclatural ambiguties originate in many 
ways ; but are always peculiarly liable to be numerous 
in a group like that of the Dahlia, developing simul- 
taneously along quite similar lines in so many different 
countries, with quite rapid interchange of varieties, but 
with no central agency for interchanging or checking 
names. 
The Dahlia well deserves its most commonly applied 
specific name, variabilis ; since hundreds of thousands of 
Dahlia seedlings may be produced in a single season, 
each slightly different from every other, and each a po- 
tential variety liable to christening should its producer, 
alone, see fit ; and capable of being widely disseminated in 
from three to five years. 
It is said that one breeder in England has grown 65,000 
seedlings in a year. Fortunately, he has been wiser than 
many other breeders on a small scale who look with fond 
parental eyes on almost any variant among their seed- 
lings ; for of the 65,000 probably not more than 50 were 
even carried into the second season. 
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L'nder such conditions exceedingly similar, if not 
identical varieties originate in different places each year, 
of which some pairs are named, differently, of course, 
pass into commerce, and may be quite widely dissemi- 
nated before their essential identity is brought to light 
by some grower who tries them side by side. Such ap- 
parently duplicate varieties are Cuban Giant and Dr. J. 
P. Kirtland, Alary D. Hallock and Queen Victoria, 
Lucifer (German) and Ami Barillet (French), Bon 
Maza and Uncertainty, Harold Peerman (English) and 
Tante Blanche (French?). 
There are undoubtedly dozens, if not hundreds, of 
other pairs so nearly alike that one name should suffice 
for the joint stock of both varieties, or of which one is 
enough better than the other to warrant discarding the 
inferior form and releasing the name for a better variety. 
In some cases, however, so-called "improvements" on 
old varieties lose their apparent superiority when grown 
elsewhere than on the grounds of their originators. The 
dissemination of such improved ( ?) varieties should be 
discouraged until thorough testing under diverse condi- 
tions has proved the added floriferousness, greater size, 
etc., to be due to something more than the first impetus 
of cross-breeding. 
Again, a breeder may originate a variety, name, and 
disseminate it, wholly unconscious that another has al- 
ready selected the same name for an entirely distinct 
variety and given it some permanence by distributing 
stock. The society, guided by its nomenclature commit- 
tee, should, in future demand that the baptismal record 
of a new variety introduced or handled exclusively by its 
members should be filed with it and approved before the 
new flower-child be considered legally entitled to pre- 
sentation to the world. Had such a system been adopted 
twenty-five years ago, especially with an arrangement for 
international name-exchange, we would not now have 
quite so many Queen Marys, Monarchs, Meteors, Dandys, 
Comets, Charms, and Sunshines, nor duplications of such 
uncommon appellations as Blushing Bride and Safrano. 
Another frequent cause of duplication of names is the 
introduction of varieties with foreign names by different 
importers. One retains the original name, the other 
translates it into the English form or drops the foreign 
name entirely and substitutes for it another of his own 
choosing. So we have listed in American catalogues 
Ruhm von Baarn, a preony-flowered Dahlia so named by 
its Dutch originator; Gloire de Baarn, the same flower 
after it had passed through France or Belgium on its 
way to us; and Glory of Baarn, the Anglicised name for 
the variety. Here the last part of the name gives a clue 
to the essential identity of the variety under the three 
names, but should we apply the same rule to Souvenir de 
Franz Liszt and Andenken von Franz Liszt, which ex- 
press an identical idea in French and German, we would 
be in error, for the varieties under these two names are 
apparently wholly distinct. 
Four names in three languages, all found in American 
or English lists, are Sneeuwwitje, Schneewittschen, 
Snow White, and Snow Queen — Dutch, German, and 
English name, translation or mistranslation of the name 
for one beautiful white Dahlia. To make the confusion 
complete some other introducer should apply the true 
translation, Snow Butterfly, for one of these forms. 
Occasionally, also, a grower loses the name of a variety 
of which he has only a small stock, renames it temporar- 
ily, hoping soon to re-establish its identity, but before he 
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