DAHLIA . 
(Instability and Pomp.) 
I HE Dahlia is a native of Mexico, where Baron 
Humboldt found it growing in sandy meadows 
several hundred feet above the level of the sea. 
It was brought to England in 1789, but was neglected 
and the genus lost. It ornamented the royal gardens 
of the Escurial, at Madrid, for several years before 
Spanish jealousy would permit it to be introduced into 
the other countries of Europe. 
It derives its name from a countryman of the celebrated 
Linnaeus, Professor Andrew Dahl, a Swedish botanist: 
he presented it in 1804 to Lady Holland, who was its 
first successful English cultivator. 
Its coarse foliage, gaudy flowers, and want of perfume 
seem to have prevented its becoming a favourite with our 
poets. Mrs. Sigourney just alludes to it as a florist’s 
flower, in her “ Farewell 
“ I have no stately dahlias, nor greenhouse flowers to weep, 
But I passed the rich man’s garden, and the mourning there was 
deep, 
For the crownless queens all drooping hung amid the wasted sod, 
Like Boadicea, bent with shame beneath the Roman rod.” 
