The ancient Aztecs used wild-growing dahlias as a food source and would eat the tubers of the flowers. They called the dahlia “Acocotli” or “water cane” because they also used its tube-like stem to carry water.

Kaleidoscope: An optical instrument in which bits of glass, held loosely at the end of a rotating tube, are shown in continually changing symmetrical forms by reflection in two or more mirrors set at angles to each other.

Dalias were originally found wild in the mountainous regions of Central America and is Mexico’s national flower. The beautiful and brilliantly colored blooms we grow in our gardens today though, have come a long way from these wild species.