Is this a Dahlia or a Georgina?

A Georgina called ‘Desdemona' from the 1830’s

Should the plant we now call a Dahlia in fact be known as a Georgina?  This is a valid question, because the Dahlia was in fact at one time called the Georgina. The Dahlia (Georgina!) was almost completely unknown in England until after the Napoleonic wars and didn’t become well known until the 1820s.  The flower was popular, but the name wasn’t.  People complained that it was confused with the similarly named Dalea and that no-one knew how to pronounce it.  Should it be Daw-ly-a, Da-ly-a or Dea-li-a.?  It was then pointed out that in parts of Europe, particularly France and Germany the Dahlia was known as the Georgina, and that this name had been accepted by the world’s leading botanist De Candolle.  And so, in 1828 it was announced by John Claudius Loudon, the author of the Encyclopaedia of Gardening, and the editor of the Gardeners’ Magazine that the Dahlia would henceforth be known as the Georgina. It was, after all, a much prettier name and one which everyone knew how to pronounce.  Loudon said that he expected every young gardener to immediately adopt the new name, although he accepted that ‘those who do not own to being young’ might continue to use the old one.  Two years later he noted with satisfaction that on a tour of the north of England and of Scotland the new name had generally replaced that of the Dahlia.  And so it was that for the next five years the flower which had been known as the Dahlia became the Georgina.

The Georgina era happened to coincide with a remarkable increase in the popularity of the flower.  In the Flower Shows, of which there were hundreds across England and Scotland, the Georgina dominated the prize categories.  In the 1834 Royal Horticultural Society flower show collections of Dahlias won two out of the four main prize categories.  It was observed that the numbers of Georginas being grown was ‘almost incredible’.  Then, suddenly, there was a volte-face in the community of botanists.  It was pointed out that whilst the same plant had been given two separate names, that of the Dahlia had been registered first.  The Dahlia had been named after a famous Swedish botanist called Dahl, whereas the Georgina had been named after an equally eminent botanist called Georgi.  But the Dahl guy had got there first, and so the Dahlia name was reinstated, as from late 1834. The irony is that neither Dahl or Georgi had any connection with the plant and had probably never even seen it.  Indeed, Dahl had died before it was introduced into Europe.  The other irony is that although everyone now pronounces Dahlia the same way, as in Day-lia, we have all got it wrong as Dahl was pronounced as in Roald Dahl, a fellow Swede, so it should be pronounced Dahl- ia.  But what we didn’t get wrong was to continue to love this gorgeous flower every bit as much as when it also had a gorgeous name.

An unnamed crimson Georgina from the 1830’s