The flower named after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl is the dahlia.
Anders Dahl (1751–1789) was a Swedish botanist and student of Carl Linnaeus. He wrote botanical works and studied plants in Sweden and Finland. The dahlia’s name commemorates him, although the exact naming story is more complicated than many summaries suggest.
A common mix-up credits Linnaeus with naming the flower. Linnaeus died in 1778, before dahlias were introduced to Europe, so he could not have formally named the genus. The Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles received dahlia specimens from Mexico and is generally associated with the plant’s early scientific classification and naming in the 1790s.
Dahlias are native to Mexico and Central America and belong to the daisy family, Asteraceae. Their showy flower heads are actually clusters of many small florets, which explains the huge variety of forms cultivated today. The genus contains dozens of recognized species and thousands of garden cultivars.