Thank you very much for your many comments and advice for literature. I will keep the reference but right now I am too busy to search. I know Dahlia campanulata and I grow Dahlia tenuicaulis from wild collected seed. Dahlia tenuicaulis is much less robust with much thinner shoots and smaller leaves than Dahlia imperialis. It also has a different branching habit, forming dense, multiple branched large shrubs. My plant is neither D. campanulata nor tenuicaulis, and I think it is not D. imperialis either. Could it be Dahlia excelsa? Looking at the book ‘Conservatory Plants‘ Vol. 2, page 219 (by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix) my plant matches best the picture of Dahlia excelsa. Also the irregular arrangements of the flowers correspnds to it, D. imperialis has a more symmetrical pyramidal shaped inflorescence. But does Dahlia excelsa exist? The bees are very busy with the flowers and as there is no other Dahlia in flower right now I should get a good seed set of non hybrid seeds. By the way..... does anybody grow Dahlia macdougallii? I would love some seed...... Bye for now Uli _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>