The dahlia suggests the instability of perfect beauty.
In the gardens of the Aztecs, the conquistadors found the dahlia, a jewel of the Americas. When it was sent hack to Spain, they made a holiday in its honor, the Day of the Dahlia. Some dahlias bear flowers more than a foot across.
For all its glory, the dahlia was touchy in the northern gardens and often would not survive. So the English flower code books called the dahlia fickle. In Europe, the dahlia became, nonetheless, an expensive and fashionable flower.
The tuber of the dahlia is a sweet fruit, eaten as a treat in the Americas, where the Aztecs called it cocoxochitl (co-COX-oh-cheetle).