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The petals on a dahlia floret, collectively the corolla, are fused into a 5-lobed tube. In the ray florets, two of the lobes stay small & indistinct, and the other three merge to become the blade, or "ligule" of the floret. Now I understand where the creases come from. I bet this also relates to the splits in a laciniated dahlia, and the patterns in the bicolors with a stripe down the middle.
Cafe' au Lait is the new header. The classification book has the originator as Swan Island Dahlias in 2005. Old House Gardens has it in 1967. Does anybody know who originated it?
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
Good Question. We have been growing it since about 1994 and it wasn't new at all, or even that popular then. I can't even remember where I got it, possibly form a local gardener selling extra tubers...
The banner looks so fresh and pretty for January...
Cafe' au Lait: Lou Paradise is the ADS Classification chair person who is in charge of the classification book. He is one of the more meticulous people I have ever met. The first time I saw him was at the ADS National show in San Jose. He was preparing some entries and had brought his own small table and small table lamp. On the table were his tools laid out in front of him, each in it's place. He wore white gloves as he was fiddling with his entry, a small floral display. This was at midnight before the show and I am sure he was at that table for many more hours.
Yes, he made the mistake in the Classification book. It is not what you think however. When cultivars win two blue ribbons in shows, they are listed in the Classification book. Normally, there is a piece of paper prepared by the person in the show that reports the show results and it lists pertinent information about the cultivar such as date of origination and originator. This information is quite often missing and all Lou has is the name and some interpretation of the class. In that case, there is no info on the originator, the country of origin or the year of introduction. In that case, Lou will list the year the cultivar first was shown and whatever information was given to him by the show reporter. In this case, the show reporter said it was a Swan Island variety(incorrect as it was probably only purchased there) and Lou listed the year it first got a blue ribbon. The only mistake that Lou made was that in these cases where information is incomplete, he is supposed to put an asterisk after the date of introduction.
Lou did everything correctly except he did not put the asterisk after the date. Lou is one of those people who takes such errors very seriously and will change it when he is informed. Unfortunately, there are many hundreds of mistakes in the information reported to Lou every year. He does an amazing job and remember he has he has only a couple of weeks to update the the Classification book as the shows end in October, the show results trickle in for several weeks thereafter and he has to have the book ready for the publisher in November.
I have gotten several phone calls from Lou asking me for correct spelling and other details that he knew was incorrect on show reports.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
Thanks for explaining how the information gets into the books in the first place. I knew an asterisk meant "date unknown, in competition since at least the year -----" but I didn't know how the date was chosen.
It was easier to take a jab at the book when I wasn't thinking about it as the work of mostly a single person. I do know of Lou Paradise as a very particular man. That is certainly a lot of time pressure to be under. And what happens if the "correction" information he is given turns out to be wrong itself? That was the oddest part about the CAL listing. In the Compendium and through last year's classification book, it was listed with a blank in the originator column, and '03* for the date. Now it is even farther away from correct. At least I would have a reference for the Bruidegom/1968 information.
I have spotted a few listings in the Compendium that were Swan Island introductions, where the listing does not match the spelling or the intro date as given by Swan Island. Now that a new one is being put together, It would actually be worthwhile to bring those to Lou's attention. I could also help fill in the correct intro date for some of those asterisks.
CC, it looks like this has spun off into a new thread. How about we move this conversation over to a more appropriate place? Not sure which forum it belongs in, though.
Darcy, stunning as always. Can I take a guess and say that's Verrone's Donna Marie. Either that or Irish Pinwheel; but it looks to big. That butterfly totally looks like he saw your camera and posed for you.
Yes, it's Verrone's Donna Marie. Wish I still had it, my boys all liked that one a lot. The Verrone stellars did ok for me the first year, but petered out the second. I don't know if they like the Midwest or it's just me.
Thanks!