What are Dahlias?
The dahlia, or dahlia juarezii, is Mexico’s national flower and is found growing wild in the sandy soil of Mexican hills. Dahlias are tuberous perennials and were cultivated in other countries in the 1800’s. Dahlias are named after the Swedish botanist, Anders Dahl, who studied the seeds and tubers from Mexican dahlias in 1789. The genus dahlia is in the class magnoliophyta and the family asteraceae. Some of the many different varieties of dahlias include the cactus, semi-cactus, orchid, ball, water lily, stellar, formal decorative and informal decorative. Informal decorative dahlias often have feathery-tipped petals or petals that are long with slightly rippling edges. Formal decorative dahlias usually have shorter petals that are quite large. Stellar dahlias are often ball-shaped with flat, open petals that are folded down to pointed tips. Bi-colored stellar dahlias such as orange and yellow combinations can be very dramatic and elegant in appearance. Water lily dahlias do look like
Dahlias are a genus of flowering perennial bushes native to Mexico that show wide variation in color, size, and flower and leaf morphology. They were first studied and classified by Anders Dahl, from whom they get their name. Dahlias are an under-studied organism whose pigment patterns indicate that their genetics might be amenable to similar methods used in Zea mays and Arabidopsis. If you’d like to know more, please visit our dahlia knowledgebase for a dahlia history, botany vocabulary primer, variety guide, and much more.
