Originally published as The Origination of Margaret E. Broomall (1933)
Original text by J. J. Broomall is in the public domain.
Compilation, editorial notes, introduction, biography, and revised text copyright © 2026 by Steve K. Lloyd. All rights reserved.
Editor's Introduction
Few of J. J. Broomall's dahlias left a documentary trail as revealing as “Margaret E. Broomall”. His plant-book entry for the 1927 seedling is characteristically terse: "Largest of all whites," followed by brief notes on its stems, size, and fullness, and the rare six-cross rating he reserved for what he called "a real topnotcher."
The 1933 account below is interested in more than one variety's success. “Margaret E. Broomall” gave Broomall a working example of an idea that runs through all his writing on plant improvement: heredity could produce a result the immediate parentage did not seem to predict. The seed parent, he tells us, was a large blush-pink Decorative. He had not pollinated it with a white dahlia, had no white growing nearby, and said he had never used a white for pollenizing at all. The seedling came out pure white. For Broomall, that outcome was the point, and heredity was his explanation for it.
But the history of “Margaret E. Broomall” did not end in Broomall's garden. He sent most of his stock to Charles G. Reed in 1929, and within a few years the variety had won major exhibition honors, become the subject of what the American Dahlia Society reported as the first patent application ever filed for a dahlia, received U.S. Plant Patent No. 36 as the second dahlia to receive plant-patent protection, and entered commerce as one of the most heavily promoted introductions of 1933.
Broomall tells the first part of that story himself. An editorial continuation following his essay carries “Margaret E. Broomall” through the patent process and commercial release. The surviving records also contain several discrepancies that cannot responsibly be harmonized. Those are kept distinct in the notes that follow.
The Origination of Margaret E. Broomall
By J. J. Broomall
I cannot give a very complete history of many of my seedlings on account of the very brief notes I have made of them in my plant book. Under the head of Decorative Seedlings of 1927 I find the following in regard to the "Margaret E. Broomall" Dahlia:
"Largest of all whites—Stems straight and strong; ten inches not disbudded; very full six crosses Propagate."
The description of the seed parent of “Margaret E. Broomall” is probably the most brief of any in my plant book; here it is: "Blush five crosses Prop". The number of crosses was my opinion of the excellence of the flower: four crosses, good; five crosses, extra good; and six crosses (very seldom used), a real topnotcher. I want to say that my opinion of the "Margaret E. Broomall" has not changed since I wrote the six crosses above it in 1927.
I use very little heat in propagating, and as the M. E. B. is slow in starting, I only had three or four plants of it in 1928. The following year I sent the most of my stock of it to Mr. Charles G. Reed. I was so unfortunate as to lose the few roots I retained for myself, which of course I greatly regretted. The second year I grew this great white, it was planted less than six feet from Jane Cowl, and when it produced (under exactly the same conditions) blooms more than twice as large as that famous variety, and on stems much finer than the Jane Cowl, I knew that I had an extra fine Dahlia.
The parent of "Margaret E. Broomall" was a blush pink decorative of large size and was not pollenized by a white Dahlia, nor did I have a white growing near it. Moreover, I have never used a white Dahlia for pollenizing.
How, then, did this seedling happen to become pure white? It seems to me that the answer to this is Heredity. For years I have contended that heredity played a greater part in the improvement of the Dahlia than any other factor, and I am more than ever convinced that this is so.
Not that I would say anything against hybridizing: I believe in it and practice it, but I do claim that heredity is apt to and very often does cause results very different from what we anticipate.
In 1929 I obtained five very fine whites from the seed parent of "Margaret E. Broomall", but not one of them were as near perfect in every detail.
It may be of interest to know that "Goodnight" is from the same seed parent as the M. E. B., but in this case I had pollenized it from Mrs. Shirley Shaw, and I came quite close to getting what I was trying for.
Until last year I was of the opinion that the flowers of this great white would be barren and that it would be impossible to use it as a parent, but from what I learned last summer I have changed my mind and have good reasons for believing that it can be used for the further improvement of the Dahlia.
From Broomall's Garden to the Patent Office
Editor's Continuation
By the time Broomall published this account in 1933, “Margaret E. Broomall” had already traveled far beyond the few plants he had raised at Eagle Rock. Reed had been building its reputation for several years. At Atlantic City in 1930, the variety won the American Home Achievement Medal, a $100 cash prize, and a cash prize for the largest and most perfect bloom in the show. It was also tested at the American Dahlia Society's official trial garden at Storrs, Connecticut, where contemporary accounts treated it as an exceptional new white.
Its next distinction was of a different kind. Congress had created plant-patent protection only the year before, when the Plant Patent Act took effect in 1930. In October 1931, the Bulletin of the American Dahlia Society reported that Success Dahlia Gardens had filed an application for “Margaret E. Broomall" on August 13, 1931. The Bulletin described it explicitly as the first application for a patent on a dahlia ever filed with the United States Patent Office.
The application eventually resulted in U.S. Plant Patent No. 36, issued October 18, 1932. The patent named Jesse J. Broomall as inventor and Charles G. Reed as assignee. “Margaret E. Broomall” retained an important priority distinction: contemporary American Dahlia Society reporting identified it as the subject of the first plant-patent application filed for a dahlia. It was not, however, the first dahlia to receive a plant patent. In 1933, the Bulletin corrected its earlier claim that “Margaret E. Broomall” was the “First Patented Dahlia,” identifying an earlier dahlia patent as Plant Patent No. 18. “Margaret E. Broomall” was therefore the second dahlia to receive plant-patent protection.
The patent arrived just before “Margaret E. Broomall” entered commerce. In 1932, the Bulletin of the American Dahlia Society reported that no stock had yet been released and that the variety would be placed on the market in 1933. Reed followed through in the 1933 Success Dahlia Gardens catalog, where “Margaret E. Broomall” received unusually elaborate treatment. A photograph showed a fifteen-inch bloom and accompanied a summary of its exhibition honors. The adjoining full-page advertisement announced "The Dahlia Sensation of All Time", with U.S. Plant Patent No. 36 prominently displayed beneath the headline.
Reed announced that only a limited number of plants would be released in 1933 under the plant patent law. The price was $15 for one plant, or $12.50 each for two or more. The advertisement surrounded the offer with endorsements from prominent dahlia growers and judges. George W. Fraser called “Margaret E. Broomall” "an achievement in Dahlia breeding," while Roland H. Patch of the American Dahlia Society trial garden described it as a distinct improvement, particularly in color, form, and size. The language was promotional, but the breadth of the endorsements shows the stature Reed wanted the new variety to command.
The contrast with Broomall's own record is striking. In 1927, the flower entered his plant book in a few clipped words: "Largest of all whites." Six years later, the same seedling occupied a full-page national advertisement, carried a United States plant patent, and was being sold under the slogan "Order Tomorrow's Dahlia Today."
“Margaret E. Broomall” had begun as an unexpected white seedling from a blush-pink parent. By its commercial release in 1933, it had become not only one of Broomall's most celebrated creations, but one of the earliest dahlias to enter the new American system of plant-patent protection.
Editor's Notes
Broomall's 1933 essay is one record among several. The documents that survive alongside it extend the variety's history, and in several places they conflict with his account or with one another. The notes below keep those records distinct rather than merging them into a single tidy narrative.
The seed parent, identified later. Broomall leaves the blush-pink seed parent unnamed in 1933. In a January 4, 1934 installment of My Experiences in the Improvement of Plants, he supplied the name: the blush-pink decorative Mrs. Frances E. Bullard. He again stated that he had not pollenized the blossom that produced the seed, recalled Mrs. Bullard as a friend and an accomplished amateur hybridist, and called the dahlia named for her one of the best seed parents he had ever used. Because this identification comes from the later account, it belongs beside the 1933 essay and has not been read back into it.
The plant-book shorthand. The printed source confirms both entries Broomall quotes: "very full six crosses Propagate" for the seedling and "Blush five crosses Prop" for its parent. Broomall explains the scale himself. Four crosses meant good, five extra good, and six, a rating he seldom awarded, "a real topnotcher."
The stock transfer. The surviving records disagree over how Reed acquired the variety. In the essay above, Broomall says he sent Reed "the most of my stock" in 1929 and kept several roots for himself, which he then lost. A 1932 American Dahlia Society notice states instead that Reed had purchased the entire stock about three years earlier. Other contemporary material documents a broader business relationship between the two men but does not settle which account of the transfer is correct. The discrepancy is left standing.
The first dahlia patent application. The October 1931 Bulletin of the American Dahlia Society reported that Success Dahlia Gardens filed the “Margaret E. Broomall” application on August 13, 1931, and identified it as "the first application for a patent on a Dahlia." This provides contemporary support for describing “Margaret E. Broomall” as the subject of the first dahlia plant-patent application.
First application does not mean first patent granted. In 1932, the Bulletin of the American Dahlia Society described “Margaret E. Broomall” as the “First Patented Dahlia.” The Bulletin corrected that claim in 1933, identifying an earlier dahlia patent as U.S. Plant Patent No. 18. “Margaret E. Broomall” therefore retains the documented distinction of being the subject of the first dahlia patent application reported by the American Dahlia Society, but Plant Patent No. 36 was the second plant patent granted for a dahlia.
Plant Patent No. 36. U.S. Plant Patent No. 36, issued October 18, 1932, names Jesse J. Broomall as inventor and Charles G. Reed as assignee. Reed's own Success Dahlia Gardens order material also gives October 18, 1932, as the date the patent was issued. A patent is a legal record of a different kind from a grower's essay, and its language reflects that. Its description of the variety as the product of years of crossing and recrossing should not be used to overwrite Broomall's account of the immediate seed parent, or his later statement that the blossom producing the seed had not been deliberately pollenized.
The 1933 commercial release. The American Dahlia Society reported in 1932 that “Margaret E. Broomall” had not yet been released and would be placed on the market in 1933. Success Dahlia Gardens subsequently announced its 1933 release under U.S. Plant Patent No. 36. The catalog priced a single plant at $15 net and two or more at $12.50 each. Reed's advertisement called it "The Dahlia Sensation of All Time" and emphasized that only a limited number of plants would be available. These are commercial claims and are used here as evidence of the way the variety was marketed, not as independent proof that it was objectively superior to every contemporary dahlia.
The Storrs score. Contemporary sources give the Storrs score for “Margaret E. Broomall” as 93½, both in the 1932 Success catalog and in later Broomall accounts. The earlier 1931 bulletin reports 92. The discrepancy remains unresolved and has not been harmonized.