The Botanical Magazine/Volume 2/44

by William Curtis

<poem>

[44]

Cyclamen persicum. Persian Cyclamen.

Class and Order.

Pentandria Monogynia.

Generic Character.

Corolla rotata, reflexa, tubo brevissimo: fauce prominente. Bacca tecta capsula.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

CYCLAMEN persicum foliis cordatis serratis. Miller's Dict. 4to. ed. 6.

N^o44

Linnæus in this, as in many other genera, certainly makes too few species, having only two; Miller, on the contrary, is perhaps too profuse in his number, making eight. The ascertaining the precise limits of species, and variety, in plants that have been for a great length of time objects of culture, is often attended with difficulties scarcely to be surmounted, is indeed a Gordian Knot to Botanists.

Our plant is the Cyclamen persicum of Miller, and has been introduced into our gardens long since the European ones; being a native of the East-Indies, it is of course more tender than the others, and therefore requires to be treated more in the style of a green-house plant.

It is generally cultivated in pots, in light undunged earth, or in a mixture of loam and lime rubbish, and kept in frames, or on the front shelf of a green-house, where it may have plenty of air in the summer, but guarded against too much moisture in the winter.

May be raised from seeds in the same manner as the round-leaved Cyclamen already figured in this work, p. n. 4.

Flowers early in the spring, and is admirably well adapted to decorate the parlour or study.

Varies with fragrant flowers, and the eye more or less red.