Dahlia's From the Pike Place Market

The dahlia is named after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. He didn't discover the dahlia, but it was from the Netherlands that our modern hybridized dahlia's emerged. From Wikipedia : "In 1872, a box of dahlia roots was sent from Mexico to the Netherlands. Only one plant survived the trip, but produced spectacular red flowers with pointed petals. Nurserymen in Europe bred from this plant, which was named Dahlia juarezii."

The dahlia is also known as Tenjikubotan (天竺牡丹) in Japanese, which is translated as 'Peony of India'. The dahlia flower is an octoploid, which means it possesses eight complete sets of chromosomes in a single cell. Most plants only have two sets of chromosomes per single cell. This accounts for the wide variety in colors, shapes and sizes among the dahlia family.

The smell of the dahlia plant is largely from its leaves and stems, and is bitter rather than sweet, which prevents it from playing anything beyond a mere bit part in the multi-billion dollar global perfume market. From Turning Earth: "Once I grew dahlias, I felt such familiarity with them that I assumed they had been a part of the garden in the home I grew up in. The smell of the foliage seemed so familiar, the rather rank smell that dahlia leaves and stems produce when cut for flowers or cut down at the end of the season."

When I Googled for examples of mainstream market dahlia perfumes, I came up with one: Dahlia by Fragonard. From eHow: "Most Dahlias do not have fragrance. However, thanks to modern hybridization, new varieties are being bred with a unique smell, such as the Honka Dahlia, created by grower Rene Rotteveel."

From Dutch Gardens: "When asked what aspect of his work he finds most challenging, René (Rotteveel) says it's the process of deciding which new varieties to keep and which to toss . . . Each year, René grows out 20,000 new seedlings, and after seeing them flower, he eliminates most, selecting no more than 300 to grow on for a second year. By year three, he will have whittled his initial crop of 20,000 down to just 10 varieties he deems ready for market."