A History of Zinnias by Eric Grissell;

Author:Eric Grissell;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baker & Taylor Publisher Services (BTPS)

Fig. 9.2. In 1896 John Bodger (1846–1924) founded Bodger Seeds Ltd. in Santa Paula, California. Known for its development of asters and zinnias, at one time Bodger Seeds was the largest seed company in the United States. First major advertisement and image for John Bodger’s ‘Giant Dahlia-Flowered Zinnias’, appearing in the American Florist magazine, 1919 (p. 776). Bodger image: Courtesy of the Lompoc Valley Historical Society.

In 1924 Bodger’s zinnias were grown and exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society in England by Messrs Dobbie & Co., prominent seedsmen and florists of Edinburgh, winning several awards as announced in the 1925 Proceedings of the Royal Horticultural Society. The first was an “Award of Merit” for the “Zinnia Giant Dahlia flowered strain,” described as a very fine strain growing about two feet high and bearing large double flowers resembling Camellia-Flowered Dahlias in form. “The colors include shades of yellow, orange, rose-pink, deep rose crimson and scarlet.” The second was a “Gold medal to Messrs Dobbie, for zinnias.”46 John Bodger passed away that same year, perhaps as a result of such high praise for his flower.

By 1926 the original ‘Mammoth’ strain of zinnias, grown in 1914, had produced the ‘Giant Dahlia-Flowered’ and ‘Giant Mammoth’ zinnias—eventually called ‘California Giants’,47 or ‘Giants of California’—and Bodger’s catalog was offering six colors of the former, fifteen colors of ‘Giant Dahlia-Flowered’, and twenty-seven colors of something they introduced called ‘Double Giant Zinnias’. At the time no descriptions or explanations were given as to how anyone was expected to tell the differences either in color, height, or form between these forty-eight forms of Dahlia-Flowered, Double Giant, or California Giant zinnias! Even given exhaustive descriptions in a booklet on zinnias,48 published by Bodger & Sons Seeds in 1935, the distinctions are best left to the highly imaginative gardener.

Bodger’s cadre of large-flowered zinnias were all simply derived from strains known in the previous century and considered improved in some manner. It is not uncommon to read superlative comments about Bodger’s work, such as that he had created “a whole new market for what had begun as a rather nondescript Mexican wild flower”49 or that “the start of the zinnia’s real popularity began in the 1920s when Bodger Seeds Ltd. introduced the dahlia-flowered ‘Giant Dahlia’ zinnia.”50 As a taxonomist (albeit with insects), I venture my own opinion that with large-flowered zinnias, planted out anonymously, few could distinguish the differences listed by Bodger between these types just mentioned. The problem is that plants react differently depending on soil, moisture, fertility, sunlight, and even pollination, so the difference between a plant that grows to three feet tall and one that grows from three to four feet tall would not be reasonable evidence of differences. This also does not take into account the natural tendency for zinnias to vary even within strains in petal count, for instance, or the open pollinated way in which zinnias were (and are) grown, meaning that occasional mistakes are made by, for instance, bees.

Bodger & Sons Seeds continued with production for

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