THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
295 
huac, but nothing more, for there it was allowed to 
remain. 
“It was not till 1789, when Vicentes Cervantes, direc¬ 
tor of the Botanic Garden, at Mexico, forwarded seeds 
of this plant to the Royal Garden at Madrid, that it had 
ever been seen in Europe. The plants produced from 
these seeds flowered in 1790. At that time the Royal 
Gardens were under the direction of Abbe Cavanilles, • 
who recognizing in this new introduction a genus 
hitherto unknown in botanical science, applied to it 
the name of Dahlia, in honor of M. Andre Dahl, a 
Swedish botanist. 
“Among the plants produced in the Madrid gardens, 
Cavanillus discovered, as he thought, three distinct 
species, all of which he described and figured in his 
great work, ‘leones et Descriptiones Plantarum,’etc., 
under the names of Dahlia Pinnata, Rosea and Coccinea, 
the former of which was a sort of semi-double, but the 
others proved only to be single flowers. Little progress 
seems to have been made in their cultivation, and it is 
doubtful whether any attempt had been-made to multi¬ 
ply them from seed, for so long as ten years after their 
first introduction we find Cavanilles distributing to va¬ 
rious botanic gardens in Europe, the identical three 
varieties he had first raised. It was not till 1802 that 
they were sent to the Jardins des Plantes, at Paris ; and 
about the same time they were also forwarded to M. De- 
candolle, at Montpelier, The gardens of Berlin and 
Dresden seem to have had them some time before this, 
for so early as 1800 we have an account of Dahlia Rosea 
being sent from Dresden to Berlin. About the period 
that Cavanilles sent his plants to the Jardins des Plantes, 
at Paris, the illustrious naturalists, Humboldt and Bon- 
pland, in descending from the table-land of Mexico to¬ 
wards the coast of the Pacific Ocean, fouDd the Dahlia 
in a prairie between Aseo and Patzenaro, at a height of 
nearly five thousand feet above the level of the sea. 
The plants then discovered were transmitted to the Bo¬ 
tanic Garden at Mexico, and in 1801 transferred to the 
Jardins des Plautes and several other gardens through¬ 
out Europe; and among them was found the D. Coc¬ 
cinea of Cavanilles. On its first reception in 1802, in 
the Paris Garden, M. Andre Thouin, director of that es¬ 
tablishment, judging from the climate of the country 
of which the Dahlia is a native, had it placed in a stove 
and treated as a tropical plant. In ISO! he published an 
elaborate treatise, illustrated with engravings, in the 
‘Annales du Museum d’Histoire Natuelle,’ on its cul¬ 
ture and management; but from all we can discover it 
was many years after this before any progress was 
made in the production of good double flowers. Till 
about this period the generic name .established by Ca¬ 
vanilles had been universally adopted by botanists 
throughout Europe; but Professor Wildenow, of Ber¬ 
lin, laboring under theimpressiouthatthename adopted 
by Cavanilles had been previously applied to another 
plant by Thunberg, he in the fifth volume of his ‘ Spe¬ 
cies Plantarum,’ discontinued tl.e name of Dahlia and 
substituted that of Oeorgina, which he founded in 
honor of Professor Georgi, of St. Petersburg. For 
some years this new nomenclature was pretty generally 
followed, particularly in Germany and central Europe, 
and even so recently as in some of the writings of Lon¬ 
don, in our own country, it was preserved; but as it 
was clearly shown that the precedence must be given 
to Cavanilles, the name of Dahlia was again restored, 
and still continues, as in all probability it ever will, to 
be associated with this now justly popular and noble 
flower. 
“Several cultivators on the continent, observing the 
natural disposition of the Dahlia to sport from its ori¬ 
ginal form, began now to direct their attention to rais¬ 
ing new varieties, and treating it as a florist flower. 
Many attempts were made to procure double flowers, 
but without success. In 1S06 the gardener at Malmai- 
son forwarded to the gardener of the St. Cloud all the 
three varieties which were then known, namely, Coc¬ 
cinea, Purpurea and Crocea. These produced seeds, 
which were sown ; but, notwithstanding all the attempts 
which were made year after year, they still remained 
single. In Belgium, however, they were more success¬ 
ful ; for we leam that in 1812, M. Donkelaar, botanic 
gardener at Louvain, having sown a quantity of seed, 
raised plants which the first year produced all single 
flowers. Disappointed but not discouraged, he from 
these sowed a second quantity, which in their turn pro¬ 
duced semi-double flowers; and emboldened with the 
success which attended this second essay, he, from 
the best of these semi-double flowers procured a 
further supply of seed, the produce of which in the fol¬ 
lowing year presented him with three plants which bore 
flowers perfectly double. These were, therefore, the first 
really double flowers which were ever produced. After 
this there were many varieties raised of all shades and 
depths of color, and from this time the Dahlia began to' 
attract for itself a measure of interest which has gone 
on increasing and which even at the present day seems 
to be as great and unabating as if it were a plant of the 
most recent introduction, and which was still a novelty 
in the midst of us. 
“ Hitherto we have been treating of the Dahlia as a 
plant confined exclusively to the continent. It must 
not, however, be inferred from this that it was not 
known and appreciated as soon and as greatly in our 
own country. The first account we have of its intro¬ 
duction to this country (London) was by the March iones 
of Bute, in 1789, from Madrid, where the Marquis was 
then residing as Ambassador from England at the Court 
of Spain. It does not appear that the roots or seeds, 
whatever they were, had been duly tended or taken care 
of, for certain it is that it never became generally known, 
or was ever even partially distributed. In all proba¬ 
bility it shared the fate of many hundreds of other- 
plants which, at that period, were sent home by col¬ 
lectors and travelers to Kew Gardens. The space for 
the continual accessions which were taking place, was 
far too limited, and the consequence was that a large 
number of the plants perished either from neglect or too- 
much crowding. The same liberal spirit which now exists- 
in that establishment did not prevail in those days, by 
which new plants are disseminated throughout numer¬ 
ous large public and private establishments in the coun¬ 
try, so that if the original plants in the Royal collection 
should be lost, a fresh supply can always be procured 
from those to whom they had been supplied. It was 
not so at the time of which we were writing, and the 
consequence was, when a plant which was unique died, 
it was entirely lost to the country. Such was the case- 
with the Dahlia, for, besides the mere fact of its intro¬ 
duction, nothing- more was known of it till 1804, when 
seeds were again forwarded from Madrid—on this occa¬ 
sion by Lady Holland. A plant of the Dahlia coccinea 
