Of Dahlia Myths - Puget Sound Dahlia Association

Of Dahlia Myths and Aztec Mythology
The Dahlia in History
By
Martin Král
Copyrighted Material
This work is an expanded and updated version of a series of articles that appeared between 2001 and 2008 in Dahlias of Today, an annual publication of the Puget Sound Dahlia Association, Seattle, Wash‐
ington . The author had access to a large volume of primary and secondary source material, as well as the assistance of prominent dahlia scientists and experts on early history and the ethnobotany of Mesoamerica. However, the stated conclusions are his own. Copyright ©2014 by Martin Král, Seattle, Washington (USA) All Rights Reserved Cover Illustration: Zina Deretsky (National Science Foundation) Cover Photos: Stellar variety AC Rooster by Martin Král; portrait of Alexander v. Humboldt Copyrighted Material
OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY - THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY
What a myth never contains is the critical power to separate its truths from its errors Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (1922) Stop me if you already have heard this one: The dahlia, an important source of food and medicine for the Aztecs (who also used the hollow stem for irrigation and water supply) arrived in Spain in 1789. Once worshipped and considered Montezuma’s favor‐
ite flower, it also took Europe by storm. The director of the Royal Botanic Garden in Madrid, Abbé José Cavanilles, assisted by botanist Dr. Anders Dahl, began hybridizing the new arrival immediately. Having classified the genus, Cavanilles then named the first species for his Swedish friend, who in turn continued breeding these new dahlias upon his return to Scandinavia. After pub‐
lishing a description of the first species, now named Dahlia pinnata, Cavanilles sent seed and tubers to other botanic gardens. The dahlia was embraced by Napoleon’s Empress Josephine, who held the fanciful flower in such high regard that she made her gardeners swear (on the pain of death) never to reveal its existence. One unfaithful servant, however, did spirit away plant ma‐
terial, and the secret was no more. Soon French peasants, desperate in the wake of the French Revolution, began cultivating dahlias for food and cattle feed. How‐
ever, they quickly learned that the dahlia tuber, while edible, was unpalatable. Dahlias also had been sent to the court at St. Petersburg, where the respected Russian botanist Georgi also developed new cultivars. Tubers were introduced to England by Lady Bute in 1798; her husband had been ambassador to the Spanish Corte. However, because the Kew Gardens staff was un‐
der the impression that dahlias were tender plants, this first raising failed: the sub‐tropical environment the plants were kept in caused rot and disease. A more successful effort by Chelsea’s John Fraser in 1802 led to a reintroduction of dahlias by other gardeners. Most notably among them was Lady Holland who sent seeds to England from Madrid in May 1804. That same year the famous explorer and scientist Alexander v. Humboldt . . . Many of these assertions, repeatedly copied and embellished in dahlia literature for the past hundred years, are ‐ simply put ‐ faction: fiction writing wrapped around a kernel of truth. There is an understandable desire among gardeners to embellish their favorite plant’s record. It’s a love affair, after all, and ‐ thin body of supportive evidence notwithstanding ‐ to the romantic only the ringing praises reach the ear. For other garden plants, the historic record speaks volumes: think of Tulip Mania, or the obsession with roses and lilies in art or literature. The New World discovery of food and medicinal plants gave us tomatoes (“the love apple”) and Chili Madness. Why not then also the dahlia? Easy ‐ because thoughtful examination of the historical record and a more academic approach to available evidence leads to far different conclusions. Two years before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II was alerted to the latest sign from the gods ‐ a passing comet: “It was that in the sky a tongue of fire of notable size and brightness appeared. When the people saw this flame emerge they would cry out, sensing that it was an omen of some great evil to come.” This recollection, recorded by Fray Ber‐
nardino de Sahagún decades later, was supported by illustrations in the Codex Florentino, one of the two dozen remaining Aztec codices that survived the Spanish conquest. When, in November 1519, Hernán Cortés stood at the banks of Lake Texcoco to look at the island city of Tenochtitlán, he also faced an Aztec Empire at the height of its transient period of glory. The Aztecs (who called themselves Mexica) had long been nomadic people, arriving from the north into the Valley of Mexico in the 1200s. They took their place among the Toltecs, whom they emulated, and Mixtecs, whom they battled. In time, the aggres‐
sive and cunning Aztecs conquered or allied with all other city‐state cultures in the Valley. Their civilization similarly flourished: Aztec practices had been honed while they were vassals and slaves of stronger tribes. Living as they did at the edge of physical existence, the Aztecs were resourceful food gatherers, skilled in herbal medicine, and utterly merciless in warfare. They also had a pantheon of 1,600 gods, foremost among them Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun and of war. This was a god who required regular blood sacrifice to maintain his strength. Another creator god, Quetzalcoatl (the Plumed Serpent, responsible for wisdom and farming) abhorred human sacrifice. Through divine intrigue, Quetzalcoatl had been banished from his people and sent east. According to legend, it was Huitzilopochtli who would lead the Aztecs to glory and the middle of Lake Texcoco. Under Moctezuma I (1440‐68), the empire had reached its apex. Allied with two other powerful pueblos, the Aztecs’ influence was felt across Central Mexico. Arts and culture thrived, enormous temples were erected in the center of the capital, and gar‐
dens were constructed on the outskirts of Tenochtitlán that held plant collections from throughout the Mexican heartland. De‐
scribed in the Codex Magliabechiano, the Aztecs even had a mythological legend of the origin of flowers involving Quetzlcoatl. It allegorized the process of what we now call pollenization. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 2 Copyrighted Material
The accession of Moctezuma’s nephew to ‘huey tlatoani’ ‐ chief spokesman or emperor ‐ in 1502 led to further conquests. This Moctezuma II also soon became absorbed with religion and astrology. When word came that strangers were coming from the east ‐ a horde of pale‐faced, bearded warriors on horseback ‐ Moctezuma II was unnerved. These arrivals had been predicted in Aztec mythology. The omens had confirmed it: Quetzalcoatl was returning to overthrow the dynasty. What followed then is well‐documented. Against insurmountable odds, Cortés twice fought his way into the capital and had the indecisive emperor thrown from his palace roof. The Spaniards crushed whatever resistance the Aztecs managed to put together under their last emperor Cuauhtémoc. By 1521, the Aztec Empire was finished. The destruction of everything native that followed the Spanish conquest also led to a fragmentary and quite contradictory historical record. The new lords loathed all the Aztec religious practices and systematically destroyed statuary, temples, customs, and codices. The Aztecs, decimated by warfare and smallpox, were enslaved. Some of the early descriptions of life in New Spain included first‐hand accounts of Aztec farming and medical prac‐
tices, compiled by Franciscan friars like Sahagún. These reports were often ac‐
companied by crude drawings done by newly‐converted Indian servants. Explor‐
ers crisscrossed the territory just behind the treasure‐seekers to begin recording Mexico’s natural world. Unfortunately, some of the most valuable early accounts were lost or not published for decades. With that background, it is difficult to sift through the evidence in looking for the dahlia’s importance in Aztec life. What is clear, though, is that ‐ while Aztecs had a marvelous agricultural system and held certain plants in high esteem ‐ the dahlia was not among them. Moctezuma II was a poet, and his gardens in Huax‐
tepec dumbfounded the visiting Spaniards. The gardens held an astonishing num‐
ber of carefully tended native and tropical plants, nourished by a sophisticated irrigation system. However, the weedy dahlia was not featured in ceremonies (as marigolds are to this day in Mexico), and in any case the Plumed Serpent wore feathers, not flower petals. So let’s lay that canard to rest, once and for all: the dahlia was emphatically NOT Moctezuma’s flower. If the emperor favored any flower over his 200‐plus wives, history is silent on this point. In fact, the only reason that the dahlia was named Mexico’s national flower (on May 13, 1963) was to celebrate the Floricultura Na‐
Xochipilli—Aztec flower god cional exposition. Organizers urged Mexican president Adolfo Lopéz Mateo to do so. Large plantings of dahlias in parks and along the famous Avenida Reforma appeared. Regrettably, subsequent admini‐
strations gave little attention to dahlia culture. Mexicans have not embraced this floricultural symbol as the declaration had hoped. To this day, dahlias in Mexican gardens tend to be the hybridized modern varieties. Early Identification The first recorded illustrations of what some botanists believe is a dahlia (likely D. coccinea, the most widely‐distributed and varied species) are contained in Francisco Hernández’ work , which was compiled during his 1570‐77 expeditions. Because of a royal decree forbidding publications of works on New Spain, the fragmentary Spanish manuscripts were not published until nearly a century later, having been translated to Latin and then revised in 1651 by Italian scholars. (They also rearranged and altered the illustrations, hence the different artistic interpretations). The complete set of original manuscripts was lost in the great Escorial fire of 1671. They describe a semi‐double plant. This form is rare in nature. There is no clear indication in the illustrations attributed to Hernández’ companion Francisco Dominguez that the plant labeled ‘Acocotlis’ is a dahlia. In Mexico closely‐related asteraceae like core‐
opsis, cosmos, and bidens also thrive. These widely distributed Hernandez illustrations ‐ note differing drawing styles OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 3 Copyrighted Material
woodblock prints show composite‐flowering plants with fleshy roots. A botanist at the University of Mexico explains that “many of the original illustrations of Hernández’ work do not appear in the published versions. Many of the illustrations that are published in his books were made in Europe and may not represent the plants he wrote about.” The Nahuatl‐language plant name ‘Acocotl’ ‐ alternatively ‘Acocoxochitl’ ‐ was in use for other plants, some not even members of the Compositae family. The suffix ‘xochitl’ identifies a flower. Incidentally, the root ‘Cocotli’ refers to a bird, not a plant. Earlier attributions, such as those of Fra Bernardino Sa‐
hagún and a citation in the Badianus Manuscript, are simi‐
larly vexing. In his richly illustrated Florentine Codex (which appeared in the late 1500s) the similarly‐named Aco‐
coxochitl is described thus: “Its foliage emerges from the ground. Its foliage and the stems are ruddy. They are hol‐
low. Its blossoms are spreading and slender. The leaves are serrated; they are chili‐red, very chili‐red.” No picture is provided. And the entry is not what one would be able to claim as a dead‐on identification. The Badianus Manuscript (Codex Barberini ‐ published in 1552) was a long‐forgotten herbal compendium ‐ probably the first produced in the Americas. Rediscovered in Vatican archives in the 1930s, it has been republished extensively, most lately as a CD‐ROM. One of its 184 plates of Aztec herbal plants is purported to illustrate a dahlia: Plate 59 (see illustration) depicts a red‐flowering plant with slender roots and given the Aztec name of “Couanenepilli”. Since Nahuatl is a well‐structured language, this designation is puzzling. No explanation has ever been offered for the vastly different local names ascribed to the dahlia. In other works, the terms Chichicpatli, Cocoxochitl, Jicamita or Xicamatl, and even Xicamaxochitl are offered as alter‐
nate appellations for Acocotl. The latter terms make collo‐
quial reference to the bulbous‐rooted jicama, whereas the first two names are alternative dialectical synonyms for the plant Acocotl. Chichicpatli has since been ascribed to the The controversial Badianus Manuscript illustration plant Guaiacum arboreum. Consulting the dictionary accom‐
panying the modern edition of the Florentine Codex, we find that “Acocotica” refers to gourd tubes (not water tubes as has been reported). “Chichic” is translated as ‘bitter, acid’, “Chichipatic” as ‘very bitter’, and “Cococ” as ‘hot, burning’. Some‐
thing of a trend is developing here. Medicinal Use Much is made in the popular literature of the dahlia’s early application in herbal medicine, in which the Aztecs had devel‐
oped considerable skill and a wealth of treatments. The Badianus Manuscript is a fine example. Written in 1552 to help ap‐
ply local medical remedies to the native population, the Nahuatl and Latin manuscript is richly illustrated with rather rudi‐
mentary oil/watercolor drawings in a modified Aztec style. Of the 204 plants depicted, none can clearly be claimed for the dahlia world. Several of the plates describe what probably are compositae, such as Plate 46 – Tzitzicton, a yellow‐flowering plant with clearly marked disc and ray florets. However, the only plant that has the appearance of a red‐flowering dahlia with orange fleshy roots (Plate 47 ‐ Nonocthton) turns out not to be a compositae at all. The Aztec scholars who created the herbal under the direction of the Spanish drew for their people, not for European botanists. Hernández also offers medical uses for the Acocotl plant. One can be sure, though, that if that medicinal aspect had in‐
volved the dahlia, we would have seen a swift import of dahlia tubers to the Old World. In fact, though, it was more than 200 years later ‐ when anything of medical value had been harvested, catalogued, and exported to European apothecaries ‐ that the dahlia made its appearance in Spain. Even today there is no demonstrable medicinal benefit for this plant, not‐
withstanding first ADS president Richard Vincent’s efforts to popularize the extraction of inulin from dahlia tubers. The dahlia’s place in medicine? As we say out West: “That dog don’t hunt.” OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 4 Copyrighted Material
Food Source th
A popular anecdote in dahlia circles is that of the 19
century French nobleman who desired to make dahlias a food crop, since the tuberous roots were supposed to contain starch aplenty to feed man and cattle alike. The Aztecs, who were truly omnivorous as a result of their long journeys and early hardships, supposedly had a history of dahlia cultivation. The record speaks otherwise: Sahagún’s Florentine Codex does not mention this plant in the section dealing with important edible roots. The Aztecs raised amaranth and sage, avocado, beans, squash, peppers, maguey, nopal cactus, but above all maize. The rain god Tlaloc was nearly as important to appease as Huitzilopochtli, and for good reason. The Valley of Mexico was rich in many ways, but the absence of rain at certain times brought famine if the corn crop was affected by drought. Aztec corn tamales were stuffed with a variety of vegetables and meats, including snails, flies, tadpoles and frogs. They also hunted a variety of birds and game and had domesticated a small barkless dog and turkeys for food. Lake Texcoco scum yielded fish, spirulina algae, insect and frog eggs. Why go after bitter roots in the hills when food sources were so varied and plentiful in the Valley? In Northern Mexico there have been reports that some natives from time to time consume dahlia roots. The Tarahumara Indians of arid Chihuahua State eat tubers of D. sherffii, and an earlier on‐site visit by an American dahlia fancier affirmed that locals in the Northern states of Durango and Sinaloa occasionally dig tubers for a snack. Aztec Gardeners The sophisticated gardening practices of the Aztecs surely caused Cortés and his men to marvel. Not only did Moctezuma maintain his large plant collection at Huaxtepec, but also the chinampas ‐ floating gardens on Lake Texcoco (these days still found at Xochimilco, the ‘Fields of Flowers’ ‐ were a remarkable adaptation of swampy terrain to agriculture. They offered year‐round food production when over‐dependence on corn from time to time threatened the Aztecs with widespread starvation. At the same time, flower gardens were not a common feature in Aztec communities. Large quanti‐
ties of ceremonial flowers, like marigold, zinnias, cosmos and tithonias, were indeed planted for harvest. Dahlias, however, had no religious significance. It is likely that when the Spanish overlords took control of the Huaxtepec gardens, the dahlia had been raised there for some time. The early illustrations noted above show semi‐double forms; hybridization probably was accidental. When the first dahlias were grown in Spain in 1789, the stock most likely came from those historic Aztec gardens. Aztec farmers were sophisticated users of terrace farming, aqueducts and irrigation, needed in the often‐arid highlands ba‐
sin. From the available evidence, there is no clear link to the use of hollow dahlia stems for water supply lines, as has been suggested by writers misinterpreting Acocotli to mean ‘water tube flower’. Even dry dahlia stalks make poor water lines. Textile Material One recent account earnestly asserted that dahlia fibers were woven into cloaks and blankets by the Aztecs. This is wild speculation: the Aztecs raised cotton in lower elevations and also used every part of the maguey plant. Status was often denoted by elaborate embroidery on loin cloth and cloak. While quite fibrous, the dahlia’s stalk and tuber yield little usable raw material that would compete with durable cotton and agave fiber. To this day, there has been no serious consideration to raise dahlias commercially for producing fiber, even for paper pulp. Arts and Design Many Aztec glyphs and codices show decorative elements that appear to have their origin in floral design. The radiating, segmented design found on shields, clothing, and other items may appear to have the dahlia for inspiration. Not necessarily so: The designs usually are quite generalized; if they do stem from flowers, these may also be linked with ceremonially sig‐
nificant plants. The designs also may be based upon other sources, such as a geometric pattern, the Aztec interpretation of the sun, and may have cosmological importance. Quetzalcoatl appears as a feathered serpent. The circular collar this deity wears is made of feathers, an important indicator of status in Aztec society. At this time, there no evidence that would link the use of a flower of low esteem with exalted design. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 5 Copyrighted Material
So, if the dahlia was neither Moctezuma’s favorite flower nor important to the Aztecs in medicine, food, or ceremonial tra‐
ditions, what then should we do with the hagiography that has been compiled for the past 200 years? Remember that all important New Spain finds had been brought to the Old World soon after the Mexican conquest. The dahlia arrived as part of a large 18th century expeditionary plant collection. Judge for yourself. CAVANILLES AND DAHL
The Eighteenth century marked the transition of the divine right of kings and absolutist government and the emergence of popular rule in Europe and North America. What would become known as the Age of Enlightenment not only affected the American and French revolutions, but the eagerness with which knowledge was pursued also had immediate consequences for the body of science that would become botany. The period coincided with an age of exploration unprecedented in hu‐
man history. Discovery of new regions to satisfy colonial aspirations and commercial exploitation was, of course, the pri‐
mary aim. Along with the soldiers, traders, and missionaries came also the discoverers of the natural world, busily examin‐
ing and cataloging the exotic setting. Zoos and herbaria across Europe filled with the treasure trove sent back to the capi‐
tals, and the nobility engaged in furious (if unfocused) collecting of the flora and fauna from abroad. This in turn spawned an entirely new approach to scholarship and opened the debate over challenges to traditional theories in science. Two scientists caught up in this transition would forever be promi‐
nently linked to the history of the dahlia: Dom Antonio José Cavanilles y Palop and Anders Dahl. It is to the credit of the former that the lat‐
ter has achieved in death what for so long was denied him in life. However, the story of Cavanilles and Dahl is more complex than the simple establishment of a personal relationship as has often been stated in popular dahlia publications. In fact, the early years of dahlias in cultivation actually involved the interrelationship of four scientists ‐ two Spanish and two Swedish. Their efforts were directly influenced by the groundbreaking classification approach of the famous taxono‐
mer Linnaeus, while the dirty work of collection and cataloguing fell to others. The evidentiary record at last speaks for itself: in the end one is forced to conclude that the close relationship between Dahl and Cavanilles may very well have been no relationship at all. VICENTE CERVANTES AND THE SPANISH EXPEDITIONS By the mid‐1700s, the Spanish had thoroughly explored all their terri‐
tories but for New Spain (Mexico). In 1786, Don Martin de Sessé y Lacasta arrived in Mexico City with an entourage of scientists. He was given royal authority to form an expedition that would complete Fran‐
cisco Hernández’ work undertaken 200 years earlier. In assembling this Royal Botanical Expedition, Sessé initially relied on fellow Span‐
iards like Vicente Cervantes. The expedition into the interior began August 4, 1787, but soon it was beset by personality conflicts and fi‐
D. coccinea (from the Sessé/Mociño expedition?) nancial squabbles. Several expedition members abandoned the quest. Others fell ill (most probably from Montezuma’s Revenge). Sessé yearned for the comforts of Mexico City, where he had founded a botanical garden in a swampy area called “El Sapo”. Indeed, the plant collecting had proved to be more arduous than initially thought. Meanwhile, Vicente Cervantes (a member of the Spanish Royal College of Pharmacy) remained behind. He was appointed “catedrático” (professor) to teach at the garden that had Sessé as its titular director. A native of Safra, this Estremaduran apothecary held regular lectures on wide‐ranging scientific topics, including Linnaeus and his classification of the living world. One of Cervantes’ most outstanding students was a native Mexican, José Mociño. While Mociño intensively studied natural science and learned to make botanical drawings, his professor busied himself with cataloguing and shipping plant material to Spain. In one of these plant material collections, the first dahlia seeds were sent to the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid sometime before 1789. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 6 Copyrighted Material
Cervantes oversaw the relocation of the Mexico City gar‐
den to a more promising spot near the Zocalo “where Az‐
tec priests had once torn the living hearts from their thou‐
sands of victims and tumbled their quivering bodies down the steps of the great pyramid.” He remained as chair of the botanical garden until Martin Sessé’s return to Spain in 1803, whereupon Cervantes at last became director. In the interim, Sessé and Mociño undertook several expedi‐
tions into Central and Southern Mexico, with Mociño at one time traveling separately along the Pacific Coast past Vancouver Island and up to Alaska’s Nootka Sound. The Sessé y Mociño expeditions yielded a richness of botanical materials, including observations, illustrations, and speci‐
mens, that was unmatched (and for too long under‐
appreciated) by the scientific community. Expedition member Athanasio Echeverria’s drawings are simply fine art, and his pupil Mociño brought more than 1,400 exqui‐
site illustrations back to Spain. After an adventurous jour‐
ney, they now are held at the Hunt Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ANTONIO JOSÉ CAVANILLES Y PALOP One academic who was eager to analyze the riches from the New World was Antonio José Cavanilles. Born in Va‐
lencia in 1745, the young Cavanilles studied math and physics but ultimately settled for a clerical career. He re‐
ceived his doctorate in theology from the University of Gandia in 1766, but he never entered church work. In‐
stead, he became a well‐regarded progressive tutor and guardian to the sons of the Duke of Infantado. On June 24, 1777, the duke took his retinue on a cultural trip to Paris. As Cavanilles statue in the Royal Botanical Garden, Madrid was the custom, the adults took in the sights and began attending several classes on experimental physics, chemistry, and natural history. They were fortunate in having as profes‐
sors renowned scientists such as Lamarck and Jussieu. Cavanilles was an apt (and avid) pupil. While the rest of the duke’s entourage returned to Spain, Cavanilles remained behind and studied botany with a passion. He was an eager supporter of the Linnaean taxonomy espoused by Jussieu, and the two began a relationship that was to last twenty years. Among his friends also were other prominent botanists: Michel Adanson, André Thouin, and fellow Spaniard D. Viera. Cavanilles was allowed to travel to Thouin’s exclusive Jardin du Roi of the French king (now Jardin des Plantes) and to plant collections and gardens in the vicinity of Paris. In 1785, the research resulted in the first of ten books of the “Monadelphiae” series. Two years later, Cavanilles made a visit to his homeland. Returning in 1788 to a Paris in crisis, Cava‐
nilles was much disturbed. As the French Revolution swept through the capital, Cavanilles found himself a captive in his own home. A servant of the hated nobility (and a cleric no less) he feared the mob. In October 1789 Cavanilles escaped Paris in disguise and returned to Madrid. At its Royal Botanical Garden (Real Jardin Botánico Matritense), he started examining and classifying the wealth of plant material sent by Sessé and Cervantes, organizing the field observations according to Linnean principles. Undoubtedly, the species dahlias described in Cavanilles’ works were among them (although it is not clear whether any seeds had been planted in the garden prior to 1790). At the same time, Cavanilles was involved in a rivalry with the garden’s director, Casimiro Gómez Ortega, and another envious botanist. In 1791 the taxonomer was ordered to travel throughout Spain to obtain data for a natural history (and to keep him away from Madrid). That year, Cavanilles published the first volume of “Icones et Descriptiones plantarum . . .”, a work he had begun in September 1790. Included in the description and the au‐
thor’s finely detailed drawings is the first mention of the dahlia, D. pinnata. Inexplicabily, Vicente Cervantes had misidenti‐
fied the seeds as belonging to a known genus, coreopsis. Other well‐known plants found in the volume are the closely re‐
lated cosmos and also the vine Cobaea scandens. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 7 Copyrighted Material
Cavanilles’ detailed illustrations established the dahlia in the botanical taxonomy In 1796, the third volume of “Icones” introduced two more dahlia species, named D. coccinea and D. rosea. They also were initially thought to be sunflowers and had been brought to Spain as part of the Alejandro Malaspina/Luis Neé expedition. More than 600 drawings brought the plant collection to light. Cavanilles, whose extensive correspondence included many of Europe’s leading botanists, began to develop a following far greater than his title of “sacerdote” (priest, in French Abbé) ever would have offered. The A. J. Cavanilles archives of the present‐day Royal Botanical Garden hold the botanist’s sizable oeu‐
vre, along with more than 1,300 letters, many dissertations, studies, and drawings. In time, Cavanilles achieved another goal: in 1801, he was finally appointed professor and director of the garden. Regrettably, he died in Madrid on May 10, 1804. The Cavanillesia, a tree from Central America, was later named for this famous Spanish scientist. ANDERS DAHL The lives of Dahl and his Spanish ‘godfather’ could not have been any more different. Born March 17,1751, in Varnhem town
(Västergötland), this Swedish botanist struggled with health and financial hardship throughout his short life. While attending school in Skara, he and several teenage friends with scientific bent founded the “Swedish Topographic Society of Skara” and sought to catalogue the natural world of their community. With his preacher father’s support, the young Dahl enrolled on April 3, 1770, at Uppsala University in medicine, and he soon became one of Carl Linnaeus’ students. Not for long: Anders was forced to drop out of the university the following year due to his father’s death, which plunged the Dahl family into fi‐
nancial crisis. Several years later (in 1775) Dahl started work on an entomological dissertation, and the 25‐year old passed his preliminary medicinal exams on May 1, 1776. Thanks to the intervention of Linnaeus, Dahl gained employment as curator with a wealthy benefactor, Claes Alströmer, who had founded a natural collection and botanical garden at his estate Kristinedal outside Gothenburg. In 1778, the elder Linnaeus died and was succeeded by his son at the university. Dahl never was Linnaeus’ secre‐
tary as has been claimed, and he certainly was not one of the classification giant’s favorite pupils. That honor belonged to Linné’s Apostles, among them Daniel Solander, Pehr Kalm, and particularly Carl Peter Thunberg. In fact, the Linnean Society of London (where the Linnean collection now resides) makes only passing mention of Dahl in its biographical works. Regretta‐
bly, no illustration of a reportedly wildly hirsute Dahl has been unearthed to date. Nevertheless, Anders Dahl figures as a Swedish naturalist with a keen interest in his environment: In 1784, he wrote a treatise in Stockholm’s “Trangrums‐acten”, analyzing the effects of pollution caused by smelly wastes from herring oil rendering plants. This resulted in legislation restricting the release of industrial waste into the groundwater, a first for Sweden (and per‐
haps for the world). Dahl also was involved in attempting to negotiate with others in order to keep the Linnaean collection from being sold abroad. After several potential Swedish buyers had been approached with little success, the frantic ‘apostles’ thought that Dahl’s employer could purchase the valuable artifacts. Eventually though, money talked, and a wealthy English‐
man (James Edward Smith) took the treasures back to London ‐ all the while threatened by suddenly awakened Swedish pride and a pursuing Swedish navy. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 8 Copyrighted Material
The following year, it was Claes Alströmer’s turn to face a financial reversal. Nearly bankrupt, he retreated to another estate, Gåsevadsholm, taking Dahl with him. During that time the 34‐year old helped an old classmate, Adam Afzelius, who was work‐
ing on a new edition of Linnaeus’ “Flora Svecica”. Anders Dahl also befriended another Uppsala professor, the newly minted rector Carl Peter Thunberg. Unlike this globetrotting botanist, Dahl had been able to take only affordable forays into the Swed‐
ish countryside. However, in 1786 he traveled to Denmark where he received an honorary doctorate in medicine from the University of Kiel. He also began work on his most important text, “Observationes botanicae circa system vegetabilium divi à Linné” ‐(Botanical Observations Concerning the Linnean Plant Systemology). The loss of his benefactor forced Anders Dahl to take up another position: in 1787 he accepted a post as associate professor of medicine and botanical demonstrator at the University of Åbo (now Turku, Finland). While there, he completed the book and continued cataloguing his herbarium, consisting mostly of duplicates from the Linnaean and Alströmer collections. (Most of this, and much of Dahl’s writings, was lost during a great fire in 1827. Others are kept at Uppsala University). On May 25, 1789 ‐ more than a year before Cavanilles saw the first dahlia in bloom in Madrid ‐ Anders Dahl died at the age of 38 of slemfeber (phlegmatic fever or pneumonia). CARL PETER THUNBERG A dashing nobleman, Thunberg cut quite a different figure from the unkempt Dahl. A native of Linnaeus’ home province of Småland, Carl Peter Thunberg (born in 1743) also suffered from his father’s early death in 1751. Studying first in his hometown Jönköping ‐ and then after 1761 at the Uppsala University ‐ Thunberg quickly achieved what had taken Dahl most of his life. In 1768, he studied medicine and two years later received his licentiate that then led to a doctorate in medicine. He was one of Linnaeus’ most illustrious scholars and much preferred botany to his field of study. On the recommendation of his mentor, Thunberg accepted a scholarship for travel abroad. He first traveled to Holland and then to France, where he studied and mingled with natural scientists in Paris. He was not to return to Sweden for the next nine years. Invited to sail as ship’s physi‐
cian aboard a Dutch merchant vessel to Japan, he eagerly accepted. At that time, Japan was still a hermetically self‐isolated empire, and its flora had barely been explored. In the intervening years, Thunberg traveled to South Africa, to Indonesia, and ultimately was able to stay a year in Ja‐
pan. In 1778 he returned to Amsterdam via a circuitous route, continuing plant collection and identification. After a side trip to London, he took up a lectureship at his alma mater, Uppsala University. Only Carl Linnaeus junior stood between Thunberg and the chair of bot‐
any he coveted. Meanwhile, the renown of the globetrotting botanist grew with every book and article he wrote. Carl Peter Thunberg was a prodigious writer and corresponded regularly with scientists he had be‐
come acquainted with on his journeys. He also cultivated a corps of stu‐
dents and befriended Swedish scientists, among them Anders Dahl. When in 1783 the younger Linnaeus died unexpectedly, Thunberg soon assumed the chairmanship and later became rector of the university. He also found time to marry at long last at 41 years of age. Interestingly (and a cautionary note to globetrotting spouses) Thunberg never left Sweden after that. Carl Peter Thunberg Largely due to his correspondence, Cavanilles learned about science in Sweden. And perhaps for that reason alone (plus the fact that Dahl’s book on botanical observations had just appeared) the Spaniard selected one of the newly classified Mexican plants and named it thus: “In honorem D. Andreae Dahl, sueci botanici”. Sure, Thunberg also sought to honor the memory of Dahl by naming a Japanese member of the Hamamelidaceae (witch hazel) family Dahlia crinita, no doubt a sly allusion to the similarity between its fuzzy flower and Dahl’s appearance. However, since the work this appellation appeared in was not pub‐
lished until 1792, Cavanilles’ ascription took precedence. If one more piece of evidence can be offered to counter the claim that Cavanilles and Dahl raised dahlias together, consider this: in the Cavanilles Archives there are 24 letters from Thunberg. There is not one from Dahl. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 9 Copyrighted Material
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
In the Year X of the French Republic (1802) a physician, Citizen Thibaud, visited the venerated professor André Thouin at the Jardin des Plantes near Versailles. Having just returned from Madrid, Dr. Thibaud delivered packets of starter plants, seeds, and dahlia roots obtained from that capital’s Royal Botanical Garden. For years, Thouin had maintained a lively exchange of correspondence and plant material with a former colleague, Antonio José Cavanilles (now the Garden’s director). As Thouin recalled in his 1804 treatise, Memoire sur la Culture des Dahlias et sur leur Usage dans l’Ornement des Jardin (“Notes on Dahlia Culture and on their Use in Garden Decoration”), the dahlia tubers belonged to three species that Cavanilles had been raising in Madrid. The article also contained color illustrations of these species. THE ACADEMICS Thus begins the first chapter of significant dahlia culture and hybridization in Europe. For more than ten years, these species dahlias had grown among the other plant collections brought from New Spain. Cavanilles apparently al‐
lowed them to winter over outdoors or relied on vegetative reproduction to multiply the plants. As fecund as we now know dahlias to be, apparently no effort was made to raise new varieties from seed. Once in Paris, that would quickly change. André Thouin (1747‐1824) was a gardener with an unbridled thirst for knowl‐
edge. Already in 1764, at the age of seventeen, he succeeded his father as head gardener of the Jardin du Roi (during the Revolution renamed Jardin des Plantes). He began enlarging its eclectic holdings considerably with bo‐
tanical material suitable for display and research. A star pupil of the famous scientist Bernard de Jussieu, soon he also became a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Institut de France. Jussieu’s brother Antoine had attracted much attention in that he challenged the rigid Linnean system of taxonomy, which depended on classifying plants by counting arrange‐
ments of reproductive parts. Antoine de Jussieu published his seminal work André Thouin on systematics in 1789; it arranged plants according to their natural relation‐
ships, not merely on the basis of sexual characteristics. A Swiss botanist, Augustin‐Pyramus de Candolle, worked with Jus‐
sieu in modifying such classification. Bernard and André Thouin sought to verify these hypotheses just as the Ancien Régime was falling apart. Appointed professeur de cultivation in 1793, Thouin began work at the prestigious Museum of Natural History and soon rose to its directorship. The turmoil of the revolutionary period caused much damage to plant collections. However, it also allowed Thouin to enrich the museum (and its now‐attached Jardin des Plantes) with plant materials, herbaria, and books looted or confiscated from the estates of nobles and the bourgeoisie. This garden sanctuary ultimately became the only French scientific institution saved from the ravages of the French Revolution. His contemporaries, men of science such as Etienne Saint‐Hilaire, René Desfontaines, and the famous Jean‐Baptiste Lamarck, regu‐
larly consulted with academicians abroad, assisted by a Napoleonic urge to spread France’s glory to other parts of Europe. As Thouin began organizing the scientific collection of the museum, he also began distributing plants to newly‐established botanical gardens throughout France. With a new central administration in place, each district (département) was required to maintain a garden center for educational and economic purposes. The kitchen garden (potager) was meant to provide a scientific approach to feeding the masses. Flowers were for edification of the leisure class, it was said. In time, though, revolutionary fervor settled down to enjoy even a bouquet or two between Napoleon’s military campaigns. The dahlia roots were started in large pots and tended in Thouin’s Paris—Jardin des Plantes with Lamarck statue greenhouse. Later that summer, the plants began to flower with OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 10 Copyrighted Material
the prettiest species sporting violet purple blooms. Thouin named this late bloomer Dahlia pourpre (it was probably D. pin‐
nata, judging from the illustration). In his article, he also noted that he failed to protect the plants from frost and surmised that the native species must have come from hot parts of Mexico, since they proved to be so cold‐sensitive: “Ce qui prouve ou au moins donne de trés fortes presumptions pour croire que ces plantes n’habitent pas les regions froides du Mexico, mais les parties chaudes . . .” There was much to learn. THE EMPRESS The waning of mob rule as the Republic developed structure under the increasing influence of Napoleon Bonaparte also led to a resurgence of decidedly aristocratic traditions. Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was a young and exotic con‐
quest that the young general set his sights on. A native of Martinique, the girl accompanied her mother on a visit to Paris; she never returned to her Caribbean paradise. Instead ‐ barely sixteen ‐ Joséphine married a nobleman, Alexandre de Beauharnais. She bore him two children and enjoyed her domesticity, but in the turmoil of the Revolution, she and her aris‐
tocratic family parted company. By now a beautiful woman of great bearing, she soon moved into Napoleon’s influential circles. He immediately was smitten with her, and on March 9, 1796, married Joséphine, boldly ignoring her previous marital state. As Napoleon noted with satisfaction: “I win battles; Joséphine wins hearts.” Always interested in gardening, Joséphine now had the resources to indulge in her passions. Against her husband’s wishes (in 1799) she purchased a run‐down estate about ten miles west of Paris called Malmaison. The property included a chateau in need of repair, some vineyards, and a small park. With the assistance of two esteemed architects, she had the building restored. She then began spending huge sums on landscaping and acquiring a botanical collection for the estate. The re‐
modeling project initially did not please Napoleon. He was used to formal gardens like Versailles, and Joséphine had em‐
braced something quite different altogether: “Madame Bonaparte will have nothing but the English style”. In time, though, he came around and began enjoying its charms. (A famous sketch shows the First Consul/President standing in front of the residence). Malmaison was France’s seat of government between 1800 and 1802. Joséphine cultivated relationships with amateur botanists such as Etienne Pierre Ventenat (who headed the garden until his death in 1808) and with famed botanical painter Pierre Joseph Redouté.Ventenat soon produced a work, entitled Le Jardin de la Malmaison, with 120 illustrations by Redouté. André Thouin, along with other notable scientists, provided advice and plant material to this new patron. While it can be assumed that dahlia roots were part of these acquisitions, none of Redouté’s fine color stipple illustrations featured this new arrival. (Indeed, only very late in life did he offer an illustra‐
tion of a dahlia ‐ a double one at that). The following year, in 1804, Joséphine was crowned Em‐
press of France by a Napoleon eager to resume royal tradi‐
tions. As Napoleon set off on military campaigns to consoli‐
date his empire, Joséphine followed her passion for compil‐
ing a huge botanical collection. She particularly loved roses: more than 250 varieties were raised at Malmaison. Re‐
douté’s most famous work Les Roses depended on this col‐
lection. Another series of detailed floral paintings became Les Liliacées (“The Lilies”). The empress was single‐handedly responsible for introducing many exotic plants to Europe. Even while France and England were at war, Joséphine con‐
Napoleon, Joséphine and her courtiers enjoying Malmaison tinued trading with Lewis Kennedy of London’s Vineland Nursery, who traveled by special passport. Malmaison’s final design included a river, waterfalls, and a lake, along with 70 acres (of 426 total) given over to her bulging botanical collection. In 1808, the grounds were finally completed. With the death of Ventenat that year, Count Lelieur de Ville‐sur‐Arce became garden director of Malmaison. During his brief tenure, Lelieur took up the task of hybridizing dahlias. He soon became em‐
broiled in a battle of wills with Joséphine’s new favorite botanist, Aimé Bonpland, who had returned from his American ex‐
peditions with Alexander v. Humboldt in 1804 to assist the empress. The explorers also had brought new dahlia seed mate‐
rial from Mexico, and it is assumed that the new varieties that appeared in Paris were either unknown species or already hybrids. They certainly did not match what Cavanilles had described and illustrated in his Icones. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 11 Copyrighted Material
Several months into his appointment, a truculent Count Lelieur was given his walking papers and sent to St. Cloud to head up that large garden. There he raised dahlia seedlings, according to his Memoire sur Malmaison. They came in a number of colors, including white, and some were even semi‐double. Lelieur became famous as a developer of roses (the Rose du Roi originally was named for the count) and as pomologist but oddly never as a dahlia hybrid‐
izer. The following year, it was Joséphine’s turn to fall from grace. Unable to bear an heir to the throne, she was curtly informed on December 15,1809 that her marriage to Napoleon was dissolved and that she was to become the Duchess of Navarre in far‐off Normandy. Humiliated, she insisted on staying at Mal‐
maison with Redouté and Bonpland among her retinue. Meanwhile, Napo‐
leon negotiated a political marriage with the Austrian emperor’s daughter, the Archduchess Marie‐Louise, who promptly bore him a son. Regal but heart
‐broken, Joséphine died at Malmaison in 1814. THE PLANT COLLECTOR No one was more affected by Joséphine’s sudden demise than her garden director, Bonpland. Born Aimé Jacques Alexandre Goujaud in 1773, his love of plants soon gave him a nickname (‘bonne plante’) that he preferred over his given name. His surgical training and avid interest in botany placed him in a perfect position when the polymath and explorer Alexander v. Humboldt ar‐ Redouté’s rendering of a single dahlia rived in Paris in 1798 on his way to the New World. With the cooperation of the Spanish government, the expedition took von Humboldt and Bonpland to the Caribbean, South and Central America, and even to Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello. They returned via a circuitous route to Paris in 1804, having collected and catalogued more than 4,500 varieties of plants, along with many other cul‐
tural and geological artifacts. All of Paris was agog, and the Empress was ecstatic over the plant collectors’ descriptions of the strange lands beyond her beloved Martinique. Napoleon was not quite as thrilled: “M. de Hum‐
boldt . . . I understand you are interested in botany. My wife also studies it,” he said coldly. The explorers related that they had met Vicente Cervantes in Mexico City and climbed hills in the neighborhood of Patz‐
cuaro, where (among other plant material) they collected dahlia seeds. Cervantes already was acquainted with the flower, they recalled. Joséphine and Bonpland became fast friends, and on her insistence, Bon‐
pland was hired as staff botanist at Malmaison. He had full reign of the plant collection with unlimited resources ‐ at least until the Empress was deposed. Bonpland threw himself into gardening and hybridizing, but in doing so, his record‐keeping suffered. If any dahlias were grown specifically for display purposes, there is no mention in accessible literature nor in his compendium Description des Plantes Rares Cultivées à Malmaison et à Na‐
Aimé Bonpland varre, published between 1812 and 1817 (with Redouté’s lovely contribu‐
tions). When Joséphine died, Bonpland turned his back on Europe and returned in 1816 to Argentina. An Innocent Abroad, he spent the rest of his short life there in poverty or in prison. THE BREEDERS Instead, it was left to the likes of Count Lelieur at St. Cloud, and to Augustin‐Pyramus de Candolle, who was the director of the botanical garden at Montpelier, to catalog arriving species dahlias and engage in well‐documented hybridization. In 1817, Lelieur succeeded in raising his first fully double dahlia. He also recorded growing variegated forms and, according to Joseph Sabine’s account in 1818, the garden displayed dahlias in shades of purples, dark and cherry reds, buffs, and even pale yellows. However, the count was also absorbed with agricultural projects and his contributions to dahlia culture have not been properly recognized. Some dahlia texts credit Count Lelieur with having tried to make dahlia tubers a new food source; evidence linking him with such efforts is still lacking. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 12 Copyrighted Material
De Candolle, on the other hand, took an abiding interest in propagating and promot‐
ing the dahlia throughout his life. Presumably, he received dahlia roots from Cava‐
nilles as well, because by the time Humboldt returned to Paris in 1804, dahlias were already growing and blooming at Montpelier. The profusion of species aberrations (such as different ray colors in what should be D. pinnata) caused no end of grief to the taxonomists. Multiple names for identically‐appearing blooms were common and they would appear in commercial catalogs until well into the late 1800s. Once hybridization efforts yielded a profusion of new colors and forms, it became a real challenge to link these to arriving species. For example, he had no fewer than five D. pinnata varieties! De Candolle consolidated what was known about dahlias in his 1810 treatise Note sur les Georgina. Why Georgina? Ah, that’s another story. GEORGINA ON MY MIND
It is perfectly understandable, given the dahlia’s popularity in our gardens today, to assume that the flower began its con‐
quest of the Old World soon after its arrival in Spain. However, more than ten years elapsed before a handful scientists and court gardeners even had the opportunity to grow Cavanilles’ three varieties. The dahlia was just one of a trove of plant treasures collected in the Americas ‐ and not an impressive one at that! That would soon change: 200 years ago an extraor‐
dinary event shaped the development of the dahlia, setting off dahlia lovers on a quest to explore immense and uncharted genetic regions. They have not come close to finding the edge of that world. VON HUMBOLDT’S CONTRIBUTION The event that spurred this exploration was the return of Alexander von Humboldt (accompanied by his friend and assistant Aimè Bonpland) to Paris in August 1804. Their five‐year long search, financed by the prosperous German nobleman from a sizable inheritance, led them to the jungles of South America. It also allowed the young scientists to collect more than 6,000 plant specimens. The humidity of the tropics destroyed probably that many or more. One of the side trips of the expedition led to Mexico in April 1803. On the advice of Vicente Cervantes, the pair also explored these new surroundings. Von Hum‐
boldt recollected some decades later: “As I descended from the high plains of Mexico toward the coastal regions of the South Sea we came upon a meadow clearing ‐ in tropical areas a very rare sight. There (at an ele‐
vation of 6,000‐6,800 feet) and east of the volcano Jorullo near Pazcuaro, we found flowering and seed‐bearing georgi‐
nas. Their height was only five or six inches. This happened in 1803. After our return to Mexico City we learned that the plant was already known to Mr. Vicente Cervantes. He already had sent seeds to the famous botanist Cavanilles in Madrid.” The vast collection of materials, artifacts and ethnographic docu‐
mentation arriving with v. Humboldt’s entourage took decades to record and analyze. The dashing nobleman, however, was an in‐
stant sensation in Paris, much to the chagrin of a newly crowned emperor. Openly disliked by Napoleon, but lionized by the social set and respected by Europe’s leading academics, von Humboldt spent the next several years (along with the rest of his fortune) mostly in the City of Light. He was able to secure employment for Humboldt and Bonpland on their American expedition his companion Bonpland at Malmaison, but found the amiable fellow to be an unmotivated researcher. The hoped‐for coop‐
erative effort to produce the comprehensive record of their travels had to be postponed repeatedly. Ultimately, another Ger‐
man botanist (Karl Kunth) took over the exhaustive publication of the 6‐volume botanical work, finishing it in 1830. In the interim, v. Humboldt returned to his native Berlin to take up a political and academic career in the Prussian government that would earn him the title of Germany’s greatest man of science. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 13 Copyrighted Material
Eager to share the wealth of his travels, Humboldt sent descriptions and plant material (including seeds or roots) to major universities and botanical collections, with whose staff he was well‐acquainted . As he later noted, they went “dans les jar‐
dins de Paris, dans tout l’Allemagne et le Nord.” Since dahlias already had been received from Madrid by several French rais‐
ers, what possible contribution could von Humboldt offer to the dahlia world? Well, bear with me. Most of the plant collection was turned over to the Museum of Natural History in Paris where it is still held in a special her‐
barium. Other materials, usually duplicates, were sent on to Berlin. The Royal Prussian Herbarium (now Botanical Museum Berlin‐Dahlem) inherited the priceless specimens (at least 3,300 at last count) as a result of a long‐term relationship of von Humboldt with his botanist mentor, the venerated Professor Willdenow. Unfortunately, most of the specimens and docu‐
mentary materials were destroyed during World War II. WILLDENOW’S CONUNDRUM The preeminence of French scientists was challenged in the 1800s by scholars centered in the major German capitals and universities. Carl Ludwig Willdenow was born in 1765 in Berlin, apprenticed in his father’s pharmacy and then studied medi‐
cine. While still a student, he developed a strong bent for botany, publishing his first work in 1787. A year later he became acquainted with v. Humboldt. The 23‐year old Willdenow struck up a lifetime friendship with his teenage pupil. As the Hum‐
boldt expedition took shape, Willdenow would regularly exchange mail with Alexander on the long journey. Meanwhile, he had taken up residence as a physician, become revered as a professor for natural science, and (in 1801) accepted the post of director of the Berlin Botanical Garden. He received dahlia roots from Cavanilles in 1803 (the same time as de Candolle). Willdenow had been working on a revision of Linnaeus’ seminal treatise Species Plantarum, Vol 3. As the dahlia had initially been grouped under the Linnean class of Syngenesia, order Superflua, a review of its current classifica‐
tion was prompted by the botanist’s aim to redefine the taxon‐
omy. He learned that another plant, a South African member of the witch hazel family, had been named Dahlia crinita by Thun‐
berg in 1792. According to his recollections, its flowers’ wooly appearance (so typical of witch hazels) reminded Thunberg of Anders Dahl’s shock of hair. In accord with scientific convention, the date of publication de‐
termines the right to claim a given plant name. Thunberg appar‐
ently was unaware that Cavanilles had published a description of D. pinnata in his first Icones in 1791.This gave Cavanilles precedence; not until decades later was the erroneous assump‐ Willdenow in his conservatory tion reconciled. GEORGI’S UNEXPECTED FAME Also bereft of that knowledge was Willdenow. Given the tense political situation in Napoleonic Europe at the time, that was understandable. In an effort to clarify the classification, Willdenow placed his plants under a new genus, named for Johann Gottlieb Georgi, an acquaintance from medical student days. Georgi had become a pharmacist in St. Petersburg, joining a large contingent of German tradesmen and academicians in that capital. He enjoyed the patronage of the Czarist court and accompanied other German scientists on ex‐
plorations to Siberia and the Russian Far East between 1770 and 1774. When team leader Pro‐
fessor Falk committed suicide, Georgi edited Falk’s Contributions to the Topographical Knowl‐
edge of the Russian Empire. While he also pursued broad‐ranging geographic and ethnocultural studies around Lake Baikal and the Altai, he was most emphatically not a botanist. Later works by Georgi dealt with the ethnic groups and natural history of the Russian Empire. He died in November 1802, so it is certain that (like Dahl) Georgi was honored posthumously for a flower he had never seen. Interestingly, if naming conventions had been followed by Willdenow, the georgina would properly have to be called ‘georgia’, as it was in one early publication. Since bo‐
tanical nomenclature is supposed to be unambiguous (and Georgia already was established in geography) perhaps he decided to make the name more acceptable by adding a Slavic feminine suffix. Similarly, Thunberg had to struggle with ‘dahlia’ to avoid confusion with the Dalea, a member of the bean family. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 14 Copyrighted Material
A year later the Humboldt seeds were distributed in France and sent to Dresden and Berlin. These clearly came from a dif‐
ferent genetic background than the three varieties that Cavanilles had classified. Quickly the color range expanded to dark red, yellow and even white flowers; hybridization efforts also yielded semi‐double forms. As the distribution of dahlias throughout Europe intensified, new varieties were introduced. In 1809, shortly before his death, Willdenow returned to the topic in his well‐known Hortus Berolinensis VIII. Willdenow analyzed the three Spanish dahlias and determined that D. rosea and D. pinnata (he called it purpurea) were essentially similar. Alluding to their vexing flowering habits, he combined these subspecies under the descriptor Georgina variabilis. Yet G. coccinea was found to be distinct, and so retained its appellation. He then added the new varieties G. lilacina and pallida. The former may have been a variant of rosea, while the latter points to the emergence of whitish flower forms. De Candolle added to the name confusion in 1810: Although by then well aware that Willdenow’s assumption was in error, his Note sur les Georgina (published in the Annals of the French Natural History Museum) affirms the accuracy of the Ger‐
man botanist’s observation. Nevertheless, the editors of the journal objected: In a side note they referred to the general acceptance in France and elsewhere of ‘dahlia’ as the proper name. No matter ‐ for at least the next hundred years, most Central and all Eastern Europeans continued to use georgina. This disparity led some to conclude that georginas were only distantly related to dahlias. More recently, German raisers used the term to describe old hybrids, specifically ball‐flowering varieties. OTTO’S THRILL The Garteninspektor of the Royal Botanic Garden in Berlin‐Schöneberg was well acquainted with dahlias. Christoph Friedrich Otto may have been hazy about when he first saw a dahlia ‐ writing thirty years later he claimed to have seen a D. pallida in 1800 and a D. purpurea in 1802 ‐ but his aim was quite clear. He detected in the new arrivals some real potential for systematic hybridization. Barely twenty, the gardener went to work. The plants were given appropriate care, with his direc‐
tor Willdenow personally handling cultivation. Otto is said to have sent dahlia seeds to England when the initial planting there failed in 1804. He also initiated distribution of dahlias to court and botanical gardens in Jena and Leipzig (1805), and later also to Karlsruhe and Erfurt (1812). Hybridization attempts produced their first reported successes in these years. The Leipzig court gardener E. A. Breiter an‐
nounced that “he was very much involved in the cultivation of a plant . . . that was at present quite costly . . . but one that soon would be a very valuable commodity.” By 1806, he could claim 103 varieties. He gave these seedlings Latin names based on their flower color, had a catalog printed, and proceeded to sell all the dahlias he could handle after receiving or‐
ders “from all provinces of Germany, France, well even from Russia, Poland and Denmark.”, according to W. Gerhard in his 1836 publication Zur Geschichte, Cultur und Classification der Georginen oder Dahlien. Concerted efforts to create new forms by Otto and other German raisers quickly bore fruit. Garteninspektor Hartwig of Karlsruhe reported in 1808 that he had raised the first fully double dahlia. Its ball‐shaped appearance led to considerable excitement in the gardening community. Breiter followed several years later with a lavender ball dahlia, which he used as seed parent for 600 seedlings. Already then the rigorous breeding for specific traits was a preferred approach: “. . . after several years his collection amounted to 300 varieties. He allowed the roots of single‐flowering dahlias to freeze and rot, in spite of their often sporting the most glorious colors.” During that time Otto received species dahlia seeds directly from Mexico from a German émigré, a Dr. Schiede. One of these, D. scapigera, still bears the suffix “Otto et Dietrich”. Von Humboldt also continued sending plant material from Paris to Germany. In 1808 a collection was delivered to Duke Carl August in Weimar who ordered these planted in the Belvedere castle garden un‐
der the supervision of none other than J. W. v. Goethe. Dahlias were among the arrivals ‐ and the world famous poet and playwright may have been the first victim of incurable dahlia fever. After Willdenow’s death in 1812, Otto became garden director for several years. His determined effort to maximize the dahlia’s potential would mark the rest of his life. He felt that it was the duty of botanical gardens to encourage the interest in horticulture by providing the loveliest of new plants to the public. It must be understood that the German dahlia scene by far outdistanced developments in France and in England during that time. Apart from the several locations noted above, dahlias also were raised in quantity in Altenburg, Potsdam, Kassel, and 1804 German magazine presents species (most significantly) Köstritz. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 15 Copyrighted Material
DEEGEN’S FORTUNE It was a small Thuringian town that would become the center of dahlia culture in Europe, largely due to the contributions of a young Prussian bureaucrat who threw over a promising career to become Germany’s most influential dahlia personality. Christian Deegen (1797‐1888) founded a dahlia dynasty in Köstritz that remains unrivaled to this day. While his own nursery no longer exists, no fewer than thirteen nurseries call Bad Köstritz home, among them major growers such as Schade (formerly Sieckmann) and Panzer. Deegen’s father thought that Christian would do well to become a tailor. However, the youngster enjoyed nature and ab‐
horred a profession that would keep him cooped up indoors. He loved flowers above all and soon began collecting for his herbarium and learning to propagate plants. When Belvedere garden director Sckell turned over some dahlia roots from his stock to the 15‐year old, he thought he had just encouraged the lad to consider hobby gardening. Christian Deegen did more than that. He entered the Prussian administration in his home town Kahla; this would give him ample opportunity to follow his passion. In 1816, Breiter of Leipzig provided Deegen with his lavender double dahlia FORMOSA. The following season, he raised fully double seedlings (along with some peony dahlias). Another year later, he produced a pure white and a pure yellow single ‐ illustrating a major progress for a young dahlia grower. Then he hit the jackpot ‐ literally! Deegen won a major lottery prize and found himself at a crossroads: stay with the administration or follow his heart? The heart won out in the end: He left civil service, married, and in 1824 purchased the palais at Köstritz from a bankrupt count to pursue commercial dahlia growing. He started with 20 fully double varieties; a couple of years later, Deegen published his first catalogue. His nursery also sought out early‐flowering varieties with an abundance of blooms and crossed plants for stronger, longer stems. One of his last, and most enduring, introductions was the flame ball KAISER WILHELM. In 1836, Christian Deegen’s success begat competition: That year, another formida‐
ble dahlia raiser opened a nursery in Köstritz. Johann Sieckmann was head gar‐
dener at the Reuß estate in Köstritz, where dahlias had been raised as early as 1810. Encouraged by the flourishing trade in dahlia novelties, he quit his post to specialize in hybridizing some of the 200 varieties in his collection. That year also marked the first dahlia exhibition in Germany. Held in nearby Jena during a medical and scientific convention, the show ‐ organized by Christian Deegen ‐ displayed 6,000 dahlias and more than 200 varieties. One of the introductions was ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, a dark red decorative. The dahlia’s namesake was present at its christening. Having re‐
cently returned from an expedition that (coincidentally) retraced some of Georgi’s route through Russia’s far reaches, v. Humboldt expressed his pleasure at the success of the “simple georgina’s transformation from species to prized garden flower.” For the dahlia, it was a journey of a different dimension. THE LADY IS NO TRAMP
Forget what you have heard about the British rescue of dahlias from certain oblivion in Spanish hands. Cast aside the asser‐
tions that as early as 1789 the tenders of Kew Gardens had mercy on the dahlia (but just didn’t understand the enclosed growing instructions for the tender exotic). Give credit to serious plantsmen who defied embargoes and English‐French hos‐
tilities. And praise the women ‐ nay, ladies ‐ that were instrumental in bringing dahlia glory to England. Or maybe not. A BEAUT OF A TALE First credit for introducing dahlias to the British generally goes to the 1st Marchioness of Bute. Variously described as the wife or the daughter‐in‐law of Lord Bute, this noble gardener was supposed to have supplied Kew gardeners with seeds from Madrid, where Lord Bute served as English ambassador. An erroneous reference in the second edition of Hortus Kewensis (the seminal botanical work of plant listings at Kew) pegged the arrival of the seeds at 1789. This date was ac‐
cepted for some time as the beginning of dahlia culture in England ‐ so much so that its National Dahlia Society celebrated the Dahlia Centenary in 1889! OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 16 Copyrighted Material
However, the mistake was discovered by historian C. Harman Payne, whose article in the September 1916 issue of The Gar‐
dener’s Chronicle painstakingly pointed to the inconsistencies and alluded to the possibility of a printer’s error in transpos‐
ing 1798 with 1789. Since it is well documented that the latter year was the first instance of dahlias flowering in Madrid’s Real Jardin, it is nigh impossible that Lady Bute had a hand in disseminating its seeds. Moreover, while John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute gained notoriety as a short‐term British prime minister and friend of King George III, he gained fame as a lover of botany and director of Kew Gardens. In fact, he gave his life to the pursuit: in 1792, he fell off a cliff in Hampshire trying to reach for a flower and died soon after of his injuries. Married to his offspring, it was Bute’s daughter‐in‐law who may have sent seeds directly to Kew. When the marquess (marquis) of Bute was posted to Madrid as British ambassador, he apparently made the acquaintance of Casimiro Ortega, Cavanilles’ garden director. Whether that resulted in the introduction of dahlia seeds to Kew in 1798 rests on evidence that is not quite compelling: an entry in the aforementioned Hortus and remarks on several horticultural specimens found by Payne. Significantly, plant lists such as Jonas Dryander’s Delineations of Exotick Plants at Kew (1796‐1803) do not mention dahlias. What became of them? According to uncorroborated sources, the plants raised from the seeds succumbed the fol‐
lowing year: “they were lost by taking too much care of them.” Thinking they must be warm‐climate flowers, the Kew gar‐
deners took the newly‐arrived Mexicans into the tropical plant area where they perished. Little also is known about Lady Bute. Charlotte Jane Hickman‐Windsor (1746‐1800) leaves a tantalizing mystery in the wake of so many attributions. The nobility was not keen for hands‐on garden work in those days, leaving such efforts to the lower classes. Any assumed relationship between her and Kew is murky, at best. If after the accidental death of Lord Bute, his fam‐
ily continued supporting the growing plant collection, one would assume that long‐time garden director William T. Aiton would make reference to that relationship and credit Lady Bute. Nothing doing. In Texas parlance, this would be a case of “all hat and no cattle.” LADY HOLLAND Better arguments exist for another woman of high breeding who brought prominence to the dahlia. Lady Elizabeth Holland was a rare bird ‐ a beautiful woman far ahead of her time, well‐traveled, strong‐willed, opinionated and shockingly scandal‐
ous! The daughter of a Jamaican land owner, Elizabeth grew up in England and (at the age of fifteen) was married to Sir Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey, Sussex in 1786. Elizabeth Vassall so became the child‐bride of a much older man whose brutish habits mirrored those of the country squire in Tom Jones. “At fifteen, through caprice and folly, I was thrown into the power of one who was a pompous coxcomb, with youth, beauty, and a good disposition, all to be squandered,” she re‐
called. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was a dutiful, if unhappy, wife and mother to their three children. She soon escaped the stifling environment of her jealous, raging husband by going abroad for extended periods. On one of these journeys, in 1794, she encountered the young Lord Holland (Henry Richard Fox). As was common among scions of the upper classes back then, the 3rd Baron Holland was traveling with an entourage of three other young nobles to Florence. The relationship among these expatriates blossomed slowly over the next several months ‐ all well‐documented by Elizabeth who wrote copious diaries. In 1796, the lovers returned to England ‐ and stepped into a society firestorm! A visibly pregnant Elizabeth confronted her husband and asked for a divorce. Sir Webster at first refused; it took an act of Parliament to grant the divorce on July 4, 1797. She had to forsake custody of her older children and give up any claim to Webster’s estate. Two days later, wedding bells rang for Elizabeth and Lord Holland. Now the mistress of Holland House in Kensington ‐ these days the mansion is used as a youth hostel ‐ Elizabeth quickly became famous for inviting notables in the arts and sciences to her salon. Gifted with a rapier wit and holding strong opin‐
ions, she could also be abrasive and overbearing. Reportedly, her husband was often on the receiving end of her domineer‐
ing attitude. England could not contain her long. In 1802, she and Lord Holland departed for France and then Spain, where they would support the Spanish opposition to Napoleon’s armies for the next several years. Her prolific diaries reveal little how she came to be associated with dahlias at all. In scouring The Spanish Journal of Eliza‐
beth Lady Holland (available on microfiche at the University of Washington Library), there are lengthy descriptions of eve‐
ning dinners, of the pageantry of bullfighting, and of country impressions. Only rarely are gardens mentioned, and certainly nothing that would lead one to conclude that Elizabeth had any more than fleeting interests in botany. In spite of spending years traveling up and down the Iberian Peninsula, no encounters with Cavanilles are noted (although their friend, the Duke of Infantado, ironically had Cavanilles as his preceptor in Paris). OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 17 Copyrighted Material
No remark also is made of packages sent back to England. There was a lively exchange of mail, judging from Elizabeth’s notes of arriving packages. The librarian at Holland House, a Mr. Buonaiuti, reported that “on the 20th of May 1804, the Right Honorable Lady Holland sent home from Spain a parcel of seeds.” These included the three species described by Cava‐
nilles and all flowered later that summer. He also recorded the blossoming of a saffron‐colored dahlia, now named D. crocata. There is some possibility that the plant material may have originated from Thouin, rather than Cavanilles. An excerpt in MacDonald’s Gardening Dictionary makes direct reference to the growing plant collection. Buonaiuti corresponded with his lord in considerable detail about each cultivar, noting his ex‐
perience in raising dahlias in London. On July 10, 1806, he re‐
ports that “above a hundred plants of Dahlias are now growing in various parts of the gardens at Holland‐House in the highest luxuriance.” Buonaiuti also keeps receiving new dahlias. In light of the deteriorating political climate and the outbreak of war between England and France in the interim, it is amazing that any mail reached the British Isles. Lady Holland was most certainly not involved in dahlia culture. While she enjoyed a well‐tended garden at Holland House, she preferred to consort with the likes of Wordsworth, Washington Irving, Talleyrand, and the Lake Poets. Her diaries sparkle with sharp analyses of political events and court gossip; disliked by women, she was lionized by the intelligentsia well into her do‐
Lady Holland (painting by Louis Gauffier) tage. She bore two more children and died in 1845. An abiding life‐long love affair with Lord Holland marked Elizabeth’s reign as mistress of Holland House. From its gardens dahlia seeds soon were distributed to other estates and nurseries. The introduction of new plant material from German sources led to a virtual explosion of dahlia varieties. Some twenty years later, Lord Holland put pen to paper and expressed his admiration thusly: The dahlia you brought to our isle Your praises forever shall speak ‘Mid gardens as sweet as your smile And colour as bright as your cheek CREDIT OBSCURE PLANTSMEN Perhaps even more prominently featured should be the contributions of several nurserymen during this fecund period of dahlia culture. In 1802 John Fraser introduced D. coccinea obtained in France (Thouin?) to his nursery at Sloane Square, Chelsea. It flowered at the Apothecaries Gardens the following year and was depicted in the 1804 Botanical Magazine (Plate No. 762). Similar detailed illustrations also appeared in the Botanists Repository, Vol 6, pl 408 (of D. pinnata) and a year later of a semi‐double variant, D. pinnata nana ‐ evidence of early hybridization. The leading garden publication of the day, Cur‐
tis’ Botanical Magazine, promoted the dahlia with fine color drawings. The dahlia was becoming the fancy of the English gardener, entranced by its exotic appearance and the quickly expanding palette of colors. Mired in obscurity are the contributions of another importer, a Colonel E.J.A. Woodford, who also defied the Channel block‐
ade by gathering a D. rosea (from Thouin again?) and raising it to bloom in autumn 1803 at his Vauxhall garden. An article by Richard A. Salisbury in 1808 erroneously gives credit to Woodford for having raised the first dahlia on England’s soil. No matter ‐ by then the popularity of dahlia culture had surpassed all expectations. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 18 Copyrighted Material
PAINTERS, POETS, AND POLITICS
Myths which are believed in tend to become true George Orwell Anyone looking for visible evidence of the dahlia’s triumphant march through Europe will find that its influence on the arts (apart from garden art) has been limited, to say the least. There are precious few references to dahlia portraiture, even as a component of a larger display of flowers. Even greater is the paucity of depictions in the plastic arts. Dahlia sculpture? Per‐
ish the thought. In the field of poetry there is a smattering of dahlia‐related works, none of world renown. Have you asked yourself why? When the rose and the lily have been the subject of poetry, powerful symbols of national identity, and appear in tapestry, heraldry, sculpture, theater and musical works, just to name the most obvious, why have the muses forsaken the extraordinary dahlia? The easy answer is that the Western world has been acquainted with dahlias for only 200 years, whereas cultivation of other flowers goes back for millennia. Flowers that are widely grown and have achieved symbolic value are apt to be adopted by cultures more readily than exotic blooms with short histories. Add to this the emergence of a mass media soci‐
ety that seeks short‐lived imagery, the decline of outlets for poetry, an emphasis on topical literature, and a shift from re‐
flective to activist art, and you can see that the dahlia will strike the peoples’ fancy when we return to the days of powdered wigs and silk knickers. Allow me to illustrate: JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE The greatest man of German literature ‐ indeed one of the major figures of world literature ‐ did not set out to be a gar‐
dener. No more so than he aimed to become a natural scientist. Young Goethe (1749‐1832), the offspring of a prominent Frankfurt noble house, actually planned on a law career. He also had an active interest in art, traveled widely, and devel‐
oped many enduring relationships ‐ including one with Alexander v. Humboldt ‐ and even more (less permanent) ones with the fair sex. His first work, The Sorrows of the Young Werther, was a loosely auto‐
biographical work that made him famous practically overnight and gave birth to the Sturm und Drang movement. A prolific writer, poet, playwright and keen observer of the political realm, Goethe was asked to come to Weimar’s court by the Saxon Duke Carl August in 1776. His benefactor offered the young lawyer a position as privy councillor; the duke also arranged with him the purchase of a garden estate in nearby Frauenplan. In time, Goethe developed good relationships with court gardeners in Dresden and Jena. His closest bond, however, was with the Sckell family responsible for Carl August’s Belvedere gardens in Weimar. There was a steady exchange of information and plants, as Goethe sought to create his personal idyll. In the course of his botani‐
cal pursuits, the poet also espoused a theory of metamorphosis contra‐
dicting Linné’s rigid taxonomy. He aimed to find the characteristics of the ‘primal plant’ and also developed a color theory that later would influence the Impressionists. While he took a lively interest in the new exotics sent by his botanist friends, in the garden he reserved his undy‐
ing passion for roses. Von Goethe may have first seen dahlias raised by the Sckells. Plant in‐
ventories in Jena listed Georgina rosea and G. purpurea as early as Poet and gardener—Goethe in his study 1809. Subsequent listings indicate that a number of species (which may well already have been hybrids) were raised in these court gardens. By 1820, dahlias also were offered for public sale. His high political profile allowed Goethe to spend considerable time with garden staff. One of these visits led to a dahlia plant‐
ing in Jena’s botanical garden, from which he chose a number of beautiful varieties. Later he became acquainted with the nursery of August F. Dreyssig in Tonndorf near Weimar. The gentleman gardener highly valued Dreyssig’s expertise and found validation of his metamorphosis theory in the gardener’s dahlia hybridization efforts. That nursery catalog was grow‐
ing quickly, with many appealing semi‐double and decorative dahlias listed in its price list. Goethe was taking a great inter‐
est in raising dahlias on his own. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 19 Copyrighted Material
This relationship came to a tragic end as Dreyssig drowned some years later in the nursery fish pond. His widow repeatedly sought to rekindle the interest of Goethe in her dahlias, but only once did the elderly Goethe return, surprising the staff. His de‐
tailed diary notes: “Madame Dreyssig was not present. Visited her garden, guided by her assistant and a young, knowledgeable gardener. Georginas and asters still excep‐
Goethe’s garden house, surrounded by his estate, today is a tourist attraction tional, but have suffered from last night’s frost.” The visitor selected some of the newest double and largest dahlias, particularly in Goethe’s favorite colors of purple and lavender. The roots were delivered to his home in the following spring. To the end of his days, Goethe enjoyed the dahl‐
ias ‐ but he never again visited the nursery. BOŽENA NĚMCOVÁ An unlikely candidate for Queen of the Dahlias, Božena Němcová (1820‐62), though born in the imperial capital of Vienna as Barbara Pankel, grew up in her mother’s homeland and embraced its folk culture. Attending school in Česká Skalice (North Central Bohemia) afforded the girl the immersion into Czech folklore and customs that would mark her later work. Married at 17 to a much older Josef Němec, a customs official, she was drawn into a circle of ardent patriots whose actions would fuel the movement called the Czech National Revival. She was also comely and a welcome sight to town folk. Two days after her wedding, Božena was crowned Dahlia Queen and hostess of the Dahlia Ball of the newly formed Czech Dahlia Society. This ‘Slavnost Jiřinek’ became an annual social event in a hall especially constructed for exhibition and entertainment. Its site, Steidler’s roadside inn, The White Lion (heraldic symbol of the Czechs) also served as headquarters of the Dahlia Circle. Only some of its deliberations dealt with dahlia culture; ethnic identity and the language arts were other topics. The dis‐
guise was warranted. In the repressive Metternich Era, the Austrian authorities were deeply suspicious of any such nationalist fervor in their crown lands. The Dahlia Circle ‐ composed of teachers, priests, intellectuals, and other nota‐
bles under the leadership of parson Hurdálek – mixed business with pleasure. What more innocuous disguise for nationalist activity than meeting as a flower club? Dahlias were obtained from German growers in Dresden and Bad Köstritz, and several of the clergy became quite accomplished in hybridizing and in rais‐
ing large plantings. The Dahlia Ball of 1839 was held in honor of a local scholar, František Smetana. His cousin Bedřich Smetana, now known the world over, attended the fête and was so inspired to write the Dahlia Polka (listen to this piece on the Božena Němcová Museum website www.bozenanemcova.cz/
music/jirinka.mid). Meanwhile, Božena Němcová was achieving renown as an author: her Babička (“Grandma”), a sentimental recounting of her youth, stirred the patriotism of Božena Němcová , Czech national poetess Czechs as few literary works had done before. Now living in Prague, Němcová also contributed poems, short stories, fairy tales, and penned letters that were published in the Czech‐language press. She continued to interact with the Dahlia Circle and occasionally visited her adopted home town ‐ not because of the dahlias, though. In fact, she was not much of a gar‐
dener at all. The Dahlia Circle and the dahlia exhibitions ceased to exist when, in the aftermath of the 1848 revolts, nationalist organiza‐
tions were suppressed and even purely social events such as the Dahlia Ball lost their enthusiastic following. A stubborn patriot, Josef Němec lost favor with his superiors and eventually was posted to the Slovak border. His wife, living in Prague, had grown estranged from her husband, and her final years were spent in the company of other men ‐ and far from any dahlia garden. The town of Česká Skalice, nevertheless, honors her memory with a well‐appointed museum which features several items from the Dahlia Circle’s heyday, including the chalice offered as first prize at the dahlia show. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 20 Copyrighted Material
CLAUDE MONET Doubtless the best‐known among flower painters and a major figure of the Impressionist School, Claude Monet (1840‐1926) painted exquisite caricatures in his youth. The son of a Paris grocer, the talented artist had his first exhibition in an art supply store. Explaining that “I am good for nothing except painting and gardening,” Monet recollected that “gardening was some‐
thing I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. Perhaps I owe having become a painter to flowers.” True, his first love among them was the dahlia, preferring small, simple flowers to double varieties. Soon, though, his interests ranged farther afield. Young Monet was an iconoclast, tempestuous, a fanatic about painting, and he also developed strong opinions about gardening ‐ as evidenced and as well‐developed as in his garden at Giverny. After military service in Algeria, Claude Monet attended the Académie Suisse, where he met Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissaro. Later he linked up with other Impressionists, such as Re‐
noir and Sisley. The very term Impressionism is derived from his work. At first painting land‐
scapes and city scenes, he gravitated to garden and flower themes in the 1870s, when he moved with his new wife Camille to a house in Argenteuil. The Garden at Argenteuil (The Dahlias) prominently depicts vibrant dahlias. His friend and fellow Impressionist Pierre‐
Auguste Renoir also then painted Monet in that garden. Another famous portrait, Young Women Among Flowers (1875) practically drowns their faces in the blooms. Dahlias also appear in the foreground of Gladioli (1876). His family had grown to include two boys, one Renoir paints Monet painting dahlias of whom is depicted next to red dahlias in Camille Monet and Child in the Garden. Tragedy struck in 1879, when Camille took ill and died. For a time the widower lived with his mistress Alice in nearby Vetheuil. The Steps at Vetheuil (1881) offers red dahlias as a foreground to electric sunflowers. His companion is depicted in Alice Hoschedé in the Garden reading next to what appears to be dahlias (as you may imagine, with Impressionists plant identification tends to be a challenge). Monet began a restless search for a more idyllic residence along the Seine. He found it when he rented a house in Giverny that would become his home and his life’s work. Having just married Alice, Claude Monet be‐
gan a blissful and very prolific period. “Il me faut surtout avoir des fleurs, toujours, tou‐
jours!” he exclaimed. “More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always.” His gar‐
den was awash in colorful flowers, and the paintings increasingly reflected the master’s immediate surroundings. A commission for 36 door panels displaying different flowers yielded three dahlia paintings (1883). While other Impressionists (Matisse, Cezanne, Re‐
noir, and Marcel Dyf) also created highly re‐
garded still lives of dahlia bouquets, their passion for garden themes was nowhere as pronounced as that of Monet. For the next forty years, the prolific Claude Monet allowed gardening and nature painting to dominate Monet’s home at Argenteuil with dahlias in the foreground his life. An interesting aspect of his relationship with dahlias is that he engaged in hybridization. His preferred variety ETOILE DE DIGOIN was an early stellar (now orchid) variety and its seedlings were introduced to the French public in 1916 amid great wonder. These bright stars set off against the dark green foliage were simply irresistible. The Giverny garden’s Grande Allee was planted mostly with cactus dahlias, some of which appeared in Monet’s work. However, it must be admitted that Monet offered entire series of portraits of water lilies, particularly after he had a stream diverted to create a water garden with Japanese influences guiding the design. Iris paintings also were his favorites. Other flowers, such as roses, poppies, lilacs, and chrysanthemums got their just due; so to claim that, by the end of his long life, Monet was still favoring dahlias is stretching the truth. But in the service of the dahlia a mouthful of hyperbole always is more palatable to its fanatics. Just remember who is serving and when to say “When!” OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 21 Copyrighted Material
DAHLIA JUAREZII
History will bear me out, particularly as I shall write that history myself Winston Churchill There are a hundred dahlia species names that have been adopted and later discarded since that seminal dahlia year 1789. Botanists have a way of discovering the nuances that separate one plant from another and then noting a principal attribute in its Latin scientific appellation. Others choose to honor another scientist, a benefactor, or some notable. Witness the dahlia (of course, named for Anders Dahl)! One of the most enduring myths surrounds the reportedly accidental discovery of Dahlia juarezii. According to popular be‐
lief, this dahlia was introduced in 1872 when a Dutch raiser named J. T. van den Berg, Jr., of Jutphaas found among a ship‐
ment of rotting tubers one viable root. Much to his surprise, the dahlia emerging from the surviving plant was quite differ‐
ent from what people then considered normal dahlia forms. As reported in the Sempervirens‐Geillustreerd Weekblad voor den Tuinbouw in Nederland (“Sempervirens ‐ Illustrated Weekly for Gardening in Holland”) of October 25, 1879, van den Berg recollects: “In the autumn of 1872 a friend of mine in Mexico sent me a small case containing various kinds of seeds and roots. They arrived in poor condition, the seeds mixed and the roots rotten. However, I kept all that were any good and carefully awaited the result. At last a tender shoot developed itself, which proved to be a dahlia. Cut‐
tings of this were taken, and the few young plants thus obtained were planted out in June. They flowered later, and surprised me and others who saw them by their large, rich crimson flowers, quite different from all other dahlias.” A new species? An exotic hybrid? Well, whether by for‐
tune or design, Mr. van den Berg had a sensation on his hands. His 1874 catalog touts the newcomer in stronger language: “New imported variety from Mexico, very large flowers, splendid, fiery orange scarlet, equal to the beau‐
tiful color of the red poppy. Its form is very outstanding and differs in every respect of all known dahlia flowers. At a distance one should believe to see the flowers of the Cereus speciosissimus (Cactus) but then with fine, pipe‐
like, rolled up flower petals.” He named it D. juarezii after the recently deceased Mexican president, Benito Juárez. Mexico’s Lincoln, as this Zapotec Indian leader became known, was widely admired for his honesty, moral cour‐
age and devotion to democratic principles. A long‐term politician with ties to native forces, he helped topple Gen‐
eral Santa Anna. When the French invaded Mexico in 1879 pencil drawing of D. juarezii in Gardeners’ Chronicle 1861, President Juárez established a government in exile. Mexican forces ultimately overcame the occupiers and restored Juárez to power in 1867. However, there is no record that this statesman had leisure time to send dahlias abroad. It remains a deep mystery who van den Berg’s Mexican correspondent was. All available documentation stops with the above publication, and we are unable to ascertain whether the raiser carried forward extensive hybridization of this new form. The Gardeners’ Chronicle of October 4, 1879, provides some additional insight and deserves to be quoted in toto: “At one of the recent meetings of the Royal Horticultural Society considerable attention was attracted to a remark‐
able Dahlia, exhibited by Mr. Cannell under the name of Cactus Dahlia. In the Dahlia as ordinarily seen the florets are OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 22 Copyrighted Material
rolled up so as to resemble so many short quills open at the ends, but in the present case the florets were all flat or nearly so, strap‐shaped like the outer florets of the original species (ray‐florets) and of a rich, crimson colour. The appearance was, there‐
fore, very striking, and suggestive of a new race in Dahlias analogous in some respects to the Japanese chrysanthemums. On inquiry we found that the Dahlia was obtained from Mr. Cullingford, of Phillimore Gardens, who re‐
ceived it from Messrs. Ant. Roozen & Son, of Overween, near Haarlem, under the name of D. yuarezii. On application the latter, gentle‐
men, we learn that they derived it some few years since from a French nurseryman and suppose it to have been imported from Mex‐
ico.” As van den Berg explains, the French origin was no accident: “The fact of its having been derived from France is easily understood when I say that I sent one of the leading French seedsmen a great many Dahlia roots and amongst them were some of Juarezii.” There may be another French connection to the forerunner of the cactus dahlia. Already in 1808, Joseph Sabine described dahlias “with the rays tubular, the florets being united at the edges, a state, perhaps, more singular than elegant, but it Dahlia Serpentina, a German cactus dahlia from 1908 is not constant, for the plant which produces tubu‐
lar rays in one season will have them fully expanded in the next.” French hybridizers featured prominently in developing new forms (collarette, orchid, and anemone), probably due to their unwillingness to submit to rigid show criteria that pro‐
duced generations of pompon and decorative forms during the 1800s. The best‐known early cactus dahlia, the fiery red Etoile de Diable, may have been saddled with an unfortunate name, but it also became seed parent to a host of improved cultivars. French growers debunked the perception that cactus dahlias were sterile by introducing more refined forms and a broader palette of colors. English raisers also figured in the development of cactus dahlias. Apart from Mr. Cullingford (Vice President of the NDS), Charles G. Wyatt cites a long list of cactus raisers in his Origins and Development of the Cactus Dahlia (Journal of the RHS, 1901). Among the first valuable introductions is the well‐known Beauty of Brentwood, offered by J. T. West, who found just one viable seed and then focused on cactus raisings. The trail may be murky, but it’s quite clear that D. juarezii, whether by accident or tall tale was no species dahlia. Even if we grant its Mexican origin, there is good evidence that its genetic material already was mixed. Geneticist W. E. Safford claimed that another species (D. popenovii) “is probably an ancestor of the cactus‐flowered dahlia, a group derived from D. juarezii. The latter species is a hybrid, supposed to have originated naturally in Central America through the crossing of D. popenovii and some other species.” Like D. pinnata whose semi‐double appearance indicated mixed parentage, one of the ancestors of D. juarezii must have been a single‐flowered species with eight revolute ray florets. So had the dahlia world not embraced rigorous orthodoxy in the 1800s, we may well have seen early development of finely quilled cactus, such as the purple sensation Shinkyoku, and found that diversity of cactus forms that we now cherish. The graceful forms, the plethora of color, and the range of size that mark modern cactus dahlias all are credit to the raiser who chooses not to toss a promising seedling into the cauldron of convention. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 23 Copyrighted Material
DAHLIA MYTHS: Reprise
As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -the ones we don't know we don't know. Donald Rumsfeld (2002) The dahlia ‐ a merger of myth and mystery? Or a garden flower whose proven attributes needed embellishment to sell to a fickle public that had become enchanted with the exotic? Was Grandma’s dahlia garden just too ordinary, too time‐
consuming, not to mention old‐fashioned? What is it about information that is on the face obvious and reassuringly believ‐
able, and then when someone stirs around for corroboration finds a host of incomplete and wildly inaccurate or unrelated facts? Hey, don’t put all the blame on our former Secretary of Defense: taking flights of fancy and jumping to conclusions are not just limited to politics. So now we have reached the end of our journey, a trip that has taken us through major topics in dahlia history. It also was a geographic journey: for those who have followed along, the exploration took you in neat chronological order to Mexico, then to Spain, a side trip to Sweden, to France, then to Germany, and finally to England. This approach also consciously mir‐
rors the transit of the dahlia from its homelands to Europe. In an effort to summarize the findings ‐ and perhaps in a valiant attempt to head off the perpetuation of dahlia myths ‐ I will give web designers, pamphleteers, dahlia functionaries, and garden scribes in a nutshell the essence of the dahlia ex‐
perience. Some will get the story straight, but others will continue to combine fact and fiction. When you are reaching for a kicker headline, prosaic prose just doesn’t sell. Montezuma’s Favorite Flower? Now that’s a line worth repeating! Back in the Mexican highlands, you will find wild dahlias. Their range extends from the semi‐arid sierras in Durango state all the way beyond Mexico and neighboring Guatemala into tropical Central America. For the brief period of Aztec ascendancy, the dahlia shared the vast Valley of Mexico with the rich flora found around the capital Tenochtitlán. The flower, however, was not embraced by the Aztec Empire: It was demonstrably neither a food source, nor used in medicinal applications, as ornamentation, for irrigation systems, clothing fiber, or any ceremonial purpose. While it was reportedly growing in the imperial gardens of Moctezuma, the Huaxtepec garden has never been catalogued, so the brief reference could have ap‐
plied to a similar plant like cosmos, zinnia or even the brilliant orange red tithonia. The term acocotl, often ascribed to dahlias, is a Nahuatl name for a ‘water pipe’ plant; it was used for several flowering plants. Similarly, the various alternative names and unrelated ones (‘couanenepilli’) given to plants with similar foliage or flower characteristics are inconclusive. Natives were trained to draw plants by their new Spanish overlords, resulting often in primitive renditions that later permit only conjecture, not absolute proof. Not until Spanish explorers under Francisco Hernández began cataloging the bounty of New Spain, did botanical illustration and physical description converge. How‐
ever, Hernández’ work was not published for nearly a hundred years, and with Italian scholars’ assistance their interpreta‐
tions and sketches may have muddied the evidence in that compendium. To hamper verification further, the secretly housed original illustrations were then lost in the great Escorial fire of 1671. We then meet up with the father figures of the dahlia: Vicente Cervantes, teacher at the royal gardens in Mexico City, sent plant material (tubers? seeds?) to the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid sometime before 1789. These had been provided by botanical explorers Sessé (his director) and Juan Mociño (a native assistant). In Spain, Antonio José Cavanilles, a botanist with a nominally clerical background, had escaped the French Revolution to find refuge in this garden. His director, Casimiro Ortega, was not too keen on his new charge and sought to send him far afield. Nevertheless, Cavanilles persisted in his clas‐
sification efforts, and in 1791 described Dahlia pinnata, a semi‐double flower (and thus, most likely already a hybrid). Cavanilles named the plant dahlia to honor the memory of a recently‐deceased Swedish botanist, Anders Dahl. He did so to recognize a colleague of his friend, the famous botanist Carl Peter Thunberg. There is no evidence that Cavanilles and Dahl ever met ‐ in fact, Anders Dahl was the classic case of an impoverished scholar whose fame (and travels) did not extend beyond Scandinavia. The scene then shifts to France, where devoted botanists such as André Thouin and Augustin‐Pyramus de Candolle sought to hybridize the new arrival in their gardens. Perhaps the most under‐appreciated influence on dahlia culture ‐ the intro‐
duction of new dahlia strains through the efforts of Alexander v. Humboldt ‐ came about as a result of the German ex‐
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plorer’s stay in Paris after his American journeys. His assistant Aimé Bonpland had developed a close working relationship with Empress Joséphine, whose retreat at Malmaison also became one of Europe’s richest plant laboratories. Although Na‐
poleon’s spouse favored roses above all, her garden director Count Lelieur also began hybridizing dahlias. Not always in ac‐
cord with Bonpland, it seems, for the Count was soon sent packing to his estate in St. Cloud where he continued developing new dahlia strains for the remainder of his life. The count also experimented with the use of dahlia tubers for human con‐
sumption but was forced to concede that neither hungry French gourmands nor their livestock were a match for the plump, but bitter, root. Meanwhile, Empress Joséphine ‐ having been unceremoniously dumped by Napoleon in 1809 so he could consummate a political marriage ‐ remained at Malmaison. Upon her death, Bonpland returned to the Americas in 1816, but eventually died poor and ignobly in Argentina. On the other hand, his erstwhile companion, Alexander v. Humboldt (soon recognized as a giant in German science) had sent plants and seeds to botanical gardens and courts elsewhere in Europe. This influx of new genetic material benefited the dahlia tremendously. The nobleman’s mentor, botanist professor Carl Ludwig Willde‐
now, had been working on a revision of Linnaeus’ seminal work Species Plantarum, and he surmised that the dahlia had been misclassified since another plant had already been named by Thunberg for his deceased friend Dahl. Willdenow so honored an acquaintance, the German Johann Gottlieb Georgi, who had explored and catalogued Russia’s natural environment and its peoples’ culture in the employment of the czar until Georgi’s untimely death in 1802. Most cer‐
tainly, Georgi was unaware of dahlias, and having been neither a botanist nor gardener, could not have made any contribu‐
tions to the flower’s growing popularity. Nevertheless, the name stuck, even when the reclassification was proven to be in error. Today, dahlias are still called georginas in parts of Scandinavia, the Baltic and in Slavic‐speaking lands. Instead it was the gardens of Germany and England that provided that necessary boost. Sponsorship by none other than Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, an avid gardener and scientist, and by garden directors such as Otto, Breiter and Deegen of‐
fered the dahlia hybrids to the world. Teachers, priests, and the occasional national poet were drawn to dahlia culture, al‐
though it must be admitted that the inclusion of Božena Němcová here is strictly for the sake of a good story. The Czech poetess mostly raised eyebrows, and her Dahlia Circle was less a sedate gardening club and more a home‐grown nationalist conspiracy. The dahlia was just a convenient foil to ward off Metternichean suspicion. Lady Holland figures large in dahlia history, but largely as a sponsor of horticulture at her estate, Holland House. Also not a gardener, the attractive globetrotter instead opted for romance with the scion of one of England’s noble families. Only problem was, she was still married. Once that little indiscretion was resolved through divorce and quick remarriage, Lady Elizabeth Holland developed a passion for genteel socializing. It was her gardeners that handled the floriculture. Another lady of high standing, the Marchioness of Bute, also had only a weak case for being listed in dahlia lore. Poor documentation and contradictory evidence of her efforts in sending plant material back to England from her Spanish domicile dooms her to the periphery of dahlia history. Finally, a review of the dahlia’s rise to prominence would not be complete without a work‐up of historical evidence concern‐
ing the arrival of D. juarezii. As tempting as it seemed, whatever description Dutch raiser J. T. van den Berg, Jr., provided to introduce this new form, the cactus dahlia certainly was not a new species. It was a sensation, though, and by honoring President Juárez of Mexico brought into view our indebtedness to our southern neighbors. Who knows, had early raisers not been so vigorous in following a rigid classification system that favored decorative and show dahlias, the world would have been enriched by an even greater diversity of form and color than that initiated with D. juarezii. After all, the dahlia still has tremendous genetic potential, as is proven every year in show and trial. With so many in garden circles favoring exotics and variegation, when will we see a variegated foliage dahlia in exhibition? And why not? One of the thrilling aspects of research is the pursuit of leads and verification of assumptions. Yes, there are known un‐
knowns ‐ we met plenty in this journey. The Internet and easier global communication have made empirical research at least more efficient, and allows us to contact collectors and specialists who then direct the search into channels that allow valuable data mining. So no longer is intellectual laziness excusable. The inexhaustible supply of information now available (through print, visual media, and the Internet) should arouse intellectual curiosity among those of us who seek verifiable, empirical truth. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 25 Copyrighted Material
Dahlien‐Zentrum interior with permanent displays A visiting Dr. Keith Hammett discusses Deegen’s contributions with Zentrum staffers Claudia Friedrich and Wolfgang Ritschel THE DAHLIEN‐ZENTRUM Not many repositories of dahlia knowledge accessible to most dahlia lovers exist outside of botanical libraries, musty university her‐
baria, and museums. One notable exception is the Dahlien‐Zentrum, a central collection point for all things dahlia. Located in Saxony’s resort town of Bad Köstritz, the area has been a hotbed of dahlia culture since the days of Christian Deegen. Several long‐term dahlia nurseries in the vicinity help cement the repu‐
tation of Bad Köstritz as Dahlia Town. Over the years the center, supported by the municipality and working in close partnership with the German DDFGG (Deutsche Dahlien‐, Fuchsien– und Gladiolen‐Gesellschaft), has sponsored workshops, hosted notable guests, and maintains a demonstration garden out‐
side of its modern headquarters. There is even a plot for species and historic dahlia varieties. The staff collects literature and other material from across the globe; they catalog and scan donated publications to archive, and regularly exhibit interesting artifacts. Having such a repository of information, and one so easily accessible by the public, is invaluable. Con‐
sider donating literature and valuable exhibi‐
tion material, but also support this effort fi‐
nancially to ensure the continued growth of this unique research institution. The website of the center provides additional information (visit www.dahlienzentrum.de). Dahlien‐Zentrum Bad Köstritz Julius‐Sturm Strasse 10 D07586 Bad Köstritz Germany ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am indebted to several of dahlia experts for comments, source material, and advice: Wallace Maritz (South Africa), Prof. Hans V. Hansen (Denmark), Dr. Keith Hammett (New Zealand), Bettina Verbeek (Germany), Ron Hedge (England), and Juan Armada (Spain) all have made material contributions in my search for the unvarnished truth. I want to thank them here; for without their involvement, I would still be paraphrasing others’ purple prose ‐ and now you know. ABOUT THE AUTHOR For the past four decades, Martin Král has grown, photographed, and written about dahlias from the perspective of an avid hobby gardener. An early member of the Puget Sound Dahlia Association and currently the organizer of the American Dahlia Society annual photo contest, he regularly corresponds with dahlia enthusiasts and experts on an international level. Since 1980 he also has served as contributing editor to Dahlias of Today, a leading publication of the PSDA. More than a hundred articles have appeared under his byline. His interest in the early development of dahlias and dahlia history was piqued by some glaring inconsistencies and unsupported assumptions found in popular literature about dahlias. A native of Austria, he is conversant in several languages and ‐ although his academic background is actually in political science ‐ Martin believes that is an advantage for taking a broad international approach in research about favorite plants and gardening. OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 26 Copyrighted Material
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL WORKS Cook, Richard K. “200 Years of Garden Dahlias in Britain.“ NDS Annual 2004 Hammett, Dr. Keith. The World of Dahlias. Wellington, N.Z.: AH&AW Reed. 1980 Hansen, Hans V. and J.P. Hjerting. “The early history of the domestication of Dahlia with emphasis on the period 1791‐1836”. Kopenhagen: Universitetets Botaniske Have. 2000 Jelitto, Leo and Paul Pfitzer. Dahlien im Garten und im Haus. Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer Verlag. 1950 Riley, Morgan T. Dahlias: What is Known About Them. New York: Orange Judd Publ. 1947 Rowlands, Gareth, The Gardener’s Guide to Growing Dahlias. Portland, OR: Timber Press. 1999 Sabine, Joseph. Account of the Genus Dahlia. London: RHS Transactions. 1818 Sorenson, Paul D. Revision of the Genus Dahlia. Rhodora, Vol. 1 (April‐September 1969) Sorenson, Paul D. Systematics of the Genus Dahlia. Univ. of Iowa PhD dissertation. 1967 Sorenson, Paul D. “The Dahlia: An Early History”. Arnoldia. Vol. 30 , Nr. 4 (July 15, 1970) Stout, Mrs. Charles H. The Amateur’s Book of the Dahlia. London: Wm. Heinemann. 1922 Verbeek, Bettina. Dahlien: Die schönsten Sorten und ihre Pflege. Munich: BLV Verlag. 2012 Jahrbuch der DDFGG. (Yearbook of the German dahlia society). Meckenheim: DCM Druck. 1984‐present AZTEC MYTHS Anderson, Frank J. An Illustrated History of the Herbals. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 1977 Bierhorst, John. The Mythology of Mexico and Central America. New York: Wm. Morrow. 1990 Bye, Robert. “Medicinal Plants of the Sierra Madre”. Econ. Bot. 40 (1986) pp. 103‐24 Coats, Alice. The Quest for Plants: A History of the Horticultural Explorers. London: Studio Vista. 1969 Emmart, Emily W. “Concerning the Badianus Manuscript, an Aztec Herbal.” Smithsonian Misc. Coll. V. 94, No. 2 (1935) Emmart, Emily W. An Aztec Herbal: The Badianus Manuscript. New York: Dover Publ. 1999 Foster, Steven. “The Badianus Manuscript (America’s First Herbal)”. The Herb Companion (Oct/Nov 1994) Gates, William. An Aztec Herbal: The Classic Codex of 1552. Mineola, NY: Dover Publ. 2000 Leon‐Portilla, Miguel. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Beacon Press. 1990 Leon‐Portilla, Miguel. Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist. Norman, OK: Univ. Of Oklahoma Press. 2002 Longman, Ida K. A Selected Guide to the Literature on the Flowering Plants of Mexico. Philadelphia: UP Press. 1964 McVaugh, Rogers. Botanical Results of the Sessé & Mocino Expedition (1787‐1803). Pittsburgh: Hunt Institute. 2000 Martinez, M. Las plantas medicinales de México. Mexico City: Botas. 1969 Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard, “Empirical Aztec Medicine”. Science, Vol. 188, No. 4185 (April 18, 1975) Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard. “Ethnopharmacology of Mexican Asteracea”. Annual Rev. of Pharmac. Toxic. 1998 Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard. Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press. 1990 Smith, Michael. The Aztecs. (3rd ed.) Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. 2012 Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1993 Varey, Simon, ed. The Mexican Treasury: The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press. 2001 Correspondence with Prof. Robert Bye, Mexico City CAVANILLES AND DAHL Blunt, Wilfried. The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus. London: Collins Publ. 1971 Pelayo, Francisco & Marcelo Frias. “Antonio José Cavanilles y la Historia Natural francesa . . .” Asclepio. Vol. 47 (1995) Pelayo, Francisco & Marcelo Frias. “El Archivo de A.J. Cavanilles en el Real Jardin Botánico”. Asclepio. Vol. 47 (1995) Svensk Biografisk Lexikon. Stockholm. 1931, pp. 548‐551 (Translated by Bettina Verbeek) Williams, T.I.. A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists. 1982, p. 126 Wikstrom’s Biographie (excerpts) Correspondence with Juan Armada, Curator, Real Jardin Botanico, Madrid Correspondence with Linnean Society, London Correspondence with Bertil Ström, Mariestad, Sweden Correspondence with Assoc. Prof. Roland Moberg, Uppsala University, Sweden Correspondence with Hakan Hallberg, Uppsala Univ. Library, Sweden Correspondence with Wallace Maritz, South Africa www.nrm.se/fbo/hist/dahl www.egs.uu.se/sysbiol/ OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 27 Copyrighted Material
FRENCH CONNECTION Candolle, Augustin Pyramidus de. “Notes sur les Georgina”. Paris: Annales du Muséum d’histoire naturelle. Vol. 15 (1810) Castelot, André. Josephine: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row. 1967 Duval, Marguerite. The King’s Garden. Charlottesville, VA: Univ. Press of Virginia. 1982 Erickson, Carolly. Josephine: A Life of the Empress. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1998 Gulland, Sandra. The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1995 Hobhouse, Penelope. Gardening Through the Ages. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1992 Rix, Martyn. The Golden Age of Botanical Art. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. 2013 Robert, Michel. Le monde des dahlias. Paris: Editions du Rouergue. 2003 Salisbury, Richard A. “Observations on the Different Species of Dahlias”. RHS Transactions. (1808) pp. 84‐98 Thouin, André. “Memoire sur la culture des Dahlia. . .”. Paris: Annales du Muséum d’histoire naturelle. Vol. 9 (1804) GEORGINA ON MY MIND Bosse, J.F.W. Handbuch der Blumengärtnerei. Hannover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung. 1840 Foerster, Karl and Camillo Schneider. Das Dahlienbuch. Berlin: Verlag d. Gartenschönheit. 1927 Gerhard, W. Geschichte, Cultur, und Classification der Georginen oder Dahlien. Leipzig: Baumgärtners Buchh. 1836 Hiepko, Paul (Alexander v. Humboldt Forschung) “Kolloquiumsreihe”. (Annual reports) Krantz, M. Die Georgine oder Dahlie (from Sagen und Geschichte). 1867? (excerpt) Meyer‐Abich, Adolf. Alexander v. Humboldt. Reinbek, Germany: Rohwolt. 1967 Otto, Christoph F. “Beitrag zur Kultur und Eintheilung der Georginen.” Allgemeine Gartenzeitung (1833) Sandhack, Hermann A. Dahlien und Gladiolen. Berlin: Verlagsbuchh. Paul Parey. 1927 Wissenschaftsaustausch zwischen Rußland und Westeuropa. Algorismus. Vol 28. 1999 Correspondence with Berend Meyer, Westerstede, Germany Correspondence with Prof. Dr. H. Walter Lack, Botanic Garden Berlin‐Dahlem www.bgbm.org/BGBM/library (Botanic Garden Berlin‐Dahlem) THE LADY IS NO TRAMP Holland, Elizabeth. The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland. New York: Longman’s Green & Co. Press. 1908 Hollingsworth, Buckner. Flower Chronicles. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press. 1958 Payne, C. Harmon. “When was the dahlia first introduced into England?” The Gardener’s Chronicle (September 23, 1916) Soler, Emilio. “La llegada de lady Holland a nuestra provincial.” University d’Alacant, Spain: Informacion (November 4, 2004) www.british‐history.ac.uk PAINTERS, POETS, AND POLITICIANS Arendt, Dorothee and Gertraud Aepfler. Goethes Gärten in Weimar. Leipzig: Edition Leipzig. 2009 Balzer, Georg. Goethe als Gartenfreund. Munich: Heyne. 1984 Dvořák, Jan. Vše o jiřinkach. Prague: Nakladelství Květ. 2004. Hücking, Renate. Mit Goethe im Garten. Munich: Callwey. 2013. Pilny, Jan, et al. Jiřinky. Prague: Statní zemědelské nakladelství. 1966 Ročenka. Yearbook of the Czech Dahlia Society DAGLA (1984‐present) Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism. New York: Harry Abrams. 1995 www.bozenanemcova.cz DAHLIA JUAREZII Van den Berg, J. T. “Dahlia Juarezzi”. Gardeners’ Chronicle. New Series 12.594 (October 4,1879) Wildon, C.E. Dahlias: “Their History, Classification, Culture, etc.” Michigan Spec. Bulletin No. 266 Wyatt, Charles G. “The Origin and Development of the Cactus Dahlia”. Journal of the RHS. 1901 pp. 467‐77 OF DAHLIA MYTHS AND AZTEC MYTHOLOGY ‐ THE DAHLIA IN HISTORY 28 Copyrighted Material
NOTES 19th century French double decorative originations