Red dahlia

Dahlia coccinea, the scarlet or red dahlia, is a tuberous perennial herb of the family Asteraceae and one of the wild progenitors of the cultivated garden dahlias. It grows from large fleshy tuberous roots, sending up branching stems often 1 to 2 metres tall bearing opposite, pinnately divided leaves with ovate, toothed leaflets. From summer into autumn it produces solitary, long-stalked flower heads on slender peduncles, each head with a single row of eight broad ray florets surrounding a yellow central disc of tubular florets; the rays are typically scarlet red, but vary to orange and occasionally yellow. The involucral bracts are arranged in two distinct series, the outer green and spreading. Achenes are flattened and lack a conspicuous pappus. The species is native to mountainous regions of Mexico and Central America, where it grows in pine-oak woodlands and grassy openings, and has long been cultivated worldwide for its showy blooms; its tubers were also an important food among the Aztecs prior to the Spanish conquest.