Dahlias

A common enough garden flower.

But until today I did not understand why there were so many different flower forms in size and colour. They can go from 5cm to 30cm in diameter and have many colour shades and mixtures.

Apparently Dahlias are octopoids. They have eight sets of homologous chromosomes whereas most plants have only two. They also have other genetic characteristics which contribute to their great diversity.

Perhaps you don’t want to know all this biological detail. But I think you will admit, as my example shows, they are very eyecatching.