Dahlia (daria)

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Dahlia (daria)

***** Location: Japan, India
***** Season: Late Summer
***** Category: Plant

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Explanation


dahlia ダリア, ダ-リア
dariya ダリヤ
"Peony from India", tenjiku botan
天竺牡丹（てんじくぼたん）
..... ponpon daria ポンポンダリア
..... urashima gusa, 浦島草 （うらしまぐさ）
（urashimasoo 浦島草 .. うらしまそう is a different flower）




She flowers from Summer into autumn and is now a welcome guest in any garden. Her colors are very bright and shining.
She got her name after the student of the biologist Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, 18th-century.

Dalie

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Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There at least 36 species of Dahlia. Dahlia hybrids are commonly grown as garden plants. The Aztecs gathered and cultivated the dahlia for food, ceremony, as well as decorative purposes, and the long woody stem of one variety was used for small pipes.

In 1872 a box of Dahlia roots were 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 with parents of Dahlias discovered earlier and these are the progenitors of all modern Dahlia hybrids.

Ever since, plant breeders have been actively breeding Dahlias to produce thousands of cultivars, usually chosen for their stunning and brightly coloured flowers. Dahlia plants range in height from as low as 12" (30cm) to as tall as 6-8 feet (180-240cm). The flowers can be as small as 2" (5 cm) or up to a foot (30 cm) in diameter. The great variety results from Dahlias being octoploids (they have eight sets of homologous chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two).

© More in the WIKIPEDIA !






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Worldwide use

India
kigo for winter
The blossoms can be seen most of the year, but in winter they are most enjoyable.





dahlia in bloom
petal by petal
a world unfolds





early moonset
a crimson dahlia blooms
before sunrise



near the dahlia
poet and a honeybee
collecting nectar


CLICK on photo to see all four in this series

Photos and Haiku
© Dr. Vidur Jyoti, India, January 2008


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



autumn mandala -
in my garden
with pure joy

© Photo and Haiku : Gabi Greve, 2004
Mandala


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again and again
I look at this -
mandala in pink

Photos by Gabi Greve, 2010



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Related words

***** . PLANTS IN SUMMER - SAIJIKI



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