The Flower Bomb

         

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dahlia_x_hybrida.jpg
Web Picture viewed on 10/05/14

         
          When my grandma first picked out the bulb(seed) of these Dahlia flowers, in the clearance section at WalMart of course, she chose it based off the pretty image on the bag of the bulb. After she got home she planted it, many weeks later she had forgotten all about planting that seed. Well days passed and this flower grew and it was ugly. First it grew a thick, wood-like stem. The stem was brown and covered in spikes, twisted and bent into about a 3 foot length. At the very end of the stem was many ordinary green leaves and at the very tip the flower bomb. By now the stem was so long and so heavy that it nearly touched the floor, looking like a hunched back granny. The bomb of the flower was a thick green layer of leaves holding a dense consistency of pink petals inside. I did not know what would be of this flower, but my grandma and I awaited anxiously.
          This is what the flower looked like in its ugly stage.

Camera Video 09/19/14

          The following stage was literally an explosion. A mystically beautiful bomb of wonder.
          The flower sprouted into a Pom-Pom. It was a massive and overwhelmingly beautiful Dahlia. The petals were a blush pink shade and there was many of them, almost too many to play 'he loves me, he loves me not'. Each petal overlapping the other until a partial sphere was formed.

Mobile Phone Picture 09/25/14

          I couldn't believe how such a crooked, unstable stem could hold up something so massive and pretty. After seeing this transformation I had many questions about  Dahlias . So I began to research and this is what I found on Wikipedia. http://en.m.wikipedia.orgwiki/Dahlia
First off I found out there are 42 species of Dahlias not including hybrids. These flowers can range from 2 inches to 1 foot in diameter . WOW! My grandma's Dahlia is only about 4 inches wide that's really nothing. I also read that each stem has only one head (flower) which is why the Dahlia in my grandma's garden has a huge stem all to itself. Another crazy thing is these flowers were originally small and had only one set of petals(no overlaps). But what happened then was humans. Through selective breeding and hybridization these huge flowers arose and I found out the kind of Dahlia my grandma has is called a Double Dahlia(but really its more like quadruple dahlia) .
         I also found two cool facts about the flower. First one, the Dahlia was the national flower of Mexico in 1963. Second the Dahlia's tubers were a crop plant for the Aztecs before the Spanish Conquest .
          I guess these flowers are not just amazingly attractive, they also have a lot of history behind them. Just like many other things or people, ugly or pretty, have a lot behind them. So all I have to say is, you can't knock it till you try it, and that is not cliché.