They seem like an undervalued food (and apparently water pipe??) plant that is also beautiful.
Once I tasted one and it was tasty. Gingery but mild. The next few I tasted weren’t good at all so I stopped tasting them.
From Wikipedia: They were used as a source of food by the indigenous peoples, and were both gathered in the wild and cultivated. The Aztecs used them to treat epilepsy,[8] and employed the long hollow stem of the Dahlia imperialis for water pipes.[9] The indigenous peoples variously identify the plants as “Chichipatl” (Toltecs) and “Acocotle” or “Cocoxochitl” (Aztecs). From Hernandez’s perception of Aztec, to Spanish, through various other translations, the word is “water cane”, “water pipe”, “water pipe flower”, “hollow stem flower” and “cane flower”. All these refer to the hollowness of the plants’ stem.
They grow easy from seed for me too and I save seeds hoping for surprise mixtures. They tend to move towards the flat and short (under 2’) and away from the big expensive style bulbs. Slightly smaller bulbs the first year have been surviving storage and some give me flowers the first year. They’re all beauties.
I’m growing dahlias this year that I started from true seed. It’s from floret and is the bees choice mix I haven’t seen the tubers they produce yet. They are living up to their name, as they have been a great pollinator attractor.
Apparently dahlias have a photosensitivity compound in them. They are listed as toxic to most animals. It looks like digestive distress mostly. Lots of plants have photosensitive compounds but can be eaten in small amounts, just large amounts will cause problems.
I’m not sure about them now. I was planning on experimenting with them more as a crop for rabbits and/or pigs but that doesn’t seem likely to go well.
I’m going to try some in the herb/flower part of the garden but may not continue with them.