98 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[JULT, 
has not. The old Anna Boleyn is not nearly 
so rich in colour as Lord Lyons, but it is 
worth growing in the borders ; and I saw it in 
the greenhouse in Messrs. Veitch’s nursery a 
few weeks ago, proving that it is yet grown 
to force.—J. Douglas, Great Gearies, Ilford. 
CATTLEYA KEINECKIANA 
SUPERBISSIMA. 
LOVELY plant of this bearing thirteen 
blooms has flowered at Sir Nathaniel 
de Rothschild’s, at Tring Park, where 
so many rare Orchids are to be found. 
Its flowers are between 6 inches and 7 inches 
across, of good Cattleya Mossics form, and 
delightfully fragrant. The sepals and petals 
are pure white, the lip white handsomely 
fringed, the tube of labellum lined with violet, 
centre orange with a ray of violet lines and 
dots running towards the margin. The colours 
t 
are very distinctly set on, and not washed into 
each other as in other forms of this plant. The 
chaste beauty is growing in a 6-inch teak 
basket, and it is one of the finest things of the 
season. Mr. E. Hill must be complimented 
on his treatment of the plant and Messrs. E. 
Sander & Co. for having imported such a 
lovely treasure. It belongs to the C. Mossics 
section, and is allied to C. Wayneri. — James 
O’Brien, Harrow. 
ORIGIN OF THE FANCY DAHLIA. 
NQUIRIES are sometimes made as to 
the origin of the Fancy Dahlia. In 
The Florist for 1849 there is a very 
interesting account of the introduction 
of the Dahlia to this country, and as this 
volume is out of print, I shall be pardoned if 
I state that Mr. Sabine, in the Transactions 
of the Horticultural Society of London (vol. 
iii.), gave an excellent account of the intro¬ 
duction of this flower ; and stated that the 
merit of first carefully attending to and culti¬ 
vating the Dahlia belongs exclusively to the 
continental gardeners, and especially those 
of France and Germany. Many persons who 
visited the Continent on the return of peace 
in 1814 were surprised with the splendour 
and variety of the Dahlias in the foreign col¬ 
lections. 
As far back as 1808 a French amateur, 
Count Lelieur, was directing his attention to 
Dahlias. “ He successively hybridised the 
few varieties he possessed, until he obtained 
purples, dark’reds, cherry reds, buffs, and 
pale yellows, and by continued attention the 
seedlings raised under his care at St. Cloud 
made rapid advances in perfection. He also 
succeeded in raising some striped and shaded 
single varieties, the parents of our ‘ Fancies.’ ” 
In 1818 our English collections contained 
several double varieties, and these, from their 
superior beauty, form, and size, soon banished 
the single sorts from our gardens. But some 
of the single varieties, as for instance Paragon, 
which is a Fancy Dahlia, remained for some 
years in catalogues, notwithstanding the 
growth of the double forms. I have a Dahlia 
catalogue issued in 1834 in which Paragon 
finds a place; but it is pretty well the only 
single variety included. 
It would appear then that we are indebted 
to Count Lelieur for the origin of our Fancy 
Dahlias. But it may be supposed that these 
were at first looked upon, by English florists 
at least, as of lesser value than the Show 
varieties, as they were not nearly so rapidly 
improved ; and it would seem that while the 
English florists turned their attention to the 
improvement of the Show varieties, the conti¬ 
nental florists, and particularly the French¬ 
men, took up the improvement of the 
Fancies. 
My earliest recollection of Fancy Dahlias is 
associated with that wonderful advance seen in 
Empereur de Maroc, dark maroon tipped with 
white, a variety that remained in cultivation 
long after its contemporaries almost without 
exception had ceased to be grown. This was a 
French variety; so was CEillet Parfaifc, orange 
striped with red; and Madame Wachy, dark 
purple tipped with white. It was when the 
late Mr. John Keynes took up raising Seedling 
Fancy Dahlias that such wonderful strides in 
the way of improvement were witnessed ; and 
now the Fancies of the past four or five years 
almost if not quite rival in size and symmetry 
the most perfect of the Show Dahlias. 
A few of the best Fancy Dahlias will be found 
in Charles Wyatt, Gaiety, George Barnes, 
James O’Brien, Jessie McIntosh, Lady An- 
trobus. Miss Browning, Miss Lilly Large, 
Professor Fawcett, Rev. J. B. M. Camm, 
and Sam Bartlett, all raised by Keynes ; and in 
