Mexico City displays beautiful flowers from the Pedregal de San Angel to the southern forests. Between the hard sidewalks and the wild vegetation of the green spaces, the dhalia coccinea blends into the urban landscape.
In pre-Hispanic times, the importance of flowers in Mexico was unquestionable. Flowers were part of the offerings to the gods and whoever took them without permission was heavily punished.
One of the flowers that represent us in the world, at least officially, is the dahlia, a plant with 45 variants, of which 35 are endemic to Mexico. In Mexico City, some species of wild dahlias are found in the Pedregal de San Angel Reserve and in the forests of Tlalpan. The topographic diversity makes the Pedregal the most floristically diverse place in the basin.
In 1784, Vicente Cervantes, first professor of botany, Director of the Viceroyal Botanical Garden of Mexico City and member of the Royal Spanish Expedition, sent seeds of several Mexican flowers to Abbé Antonio José Cavanilles y Palop, director of the Botanical Garden of Madrid, Spain; among them were the first seeds of the acocoxochitl. The dahlias amazed Father Cavanilles, who cultivated them with great care, and gave them the name Dahlia pinnata, in honor of the Swedish botanist Dahl, a student of Linnaeus.
To recognize this species, it is enough to see the large leaves, extremely variable from simple and entire to three times divided, winged and grooved petioles; their shape is ovate to spatulate and they measure from 0.6 to 1.5 cm long; their ligulate flowers are yellow to red.