2 Suzi loves the Cafe au Lait colours
Suzi was born in Moscow but came to the UK as a dancer with the Royal Ballet.
And it wasn’t till her first English summer that she discovered the gardens of the South West and dahlias grown in varieties of the subtle colours of Cafe au Lait.
Dahlias were known only to the Aztecs and other southern North American peoples until the Spanish conquest, after which the plants were brought to Europe. The tubers of some varieties are of medicinal and dietary value to humans because, in common with species of Inula and many other flowering plants, they use inulin, a polymer of the fruit sugar fructose, instead of starch as a storage polysaccharide.
The stems are leafy, ranging in height from as low as 30 centimetres (12 inches) to more than 1.8–2.4 metres (6–8 feet). Flower forms are variable, with one head per stem; these can be as small as 5 cm (2 in) in diameter or up to 30 cm (1 ft) (“dinner plate”). The majority of species do not produce scented flowers. Like most plants that do not attract pollinating insects through scent, they are brightly colored, displaying most hues, with the exception of blue.
The great variety in species results from garden dahlias being octoploids, having eight sets of homologous chromosomes. In addition, dahlias also contain many transposons—genetic pieces that move from place to place upon an allele—which contributes to their manifesting such great diversity.