A Dahlia Controversy
Gardeners may be divided into two classes : those who are followers of Ha and those who are complete heretics. Ha or Amber Giant stands as a type—immense, lusty, full of robust, or robustious colour. No dahlia in the list is so certain to bloom magnificently. you would not know it for the same species or even genus as the single half-dwarf scarlet dahlia of a rather earlier habit. It is magnificent, but is it art ? It would be presumptuous, even rash, to take sides ; and taste is beyond argument. In general doubtless the single flower is more lovely than the double, and is more natural, and more productive of seed ; but there are plants that increase in the proper qualities of a flower with the number of petals. Perhaps the sweetest of all bedding roses is Dame Edith Helen, and she has often a hundred petals, as many as the sweet-scented cabbage rose. The dogrose and the field rose have a scarcely perceptible scent. Where a mass of colour is wanted the huge 'double dahlia and the double hollyhocks (of which there are many glorious new sorts) have unquestionable advantages. An Australian friend said once it was worth travelling 12,000 'miles to see the dahlias in St. James's ,Park. So we may all allow Ra (or his like) to play the sun he is named from in his own place, even though his flaring immensity may seem to some of us a vulgar excess. Indeed, if a single flower is picked and brought into the house it is as nearly ludicrous as a flower can well be.
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