1869.] BOTTOM -HEAT. 5G7 



colouring, and amplitude of beautiful leaves, surpasses all Cyclamens. 

 It has the neat compact habit of C. Coura, with greater luxuriance, and 

 the large flowers of C. persicum. It is, however, more correctly a race 

 than a fixed hybrid form that has resulted from this cross, and many 

 of the varieties are beautiful in the extreme, though not very distinct 

 one from another. Other varieties of C persicum are C. persicum 

 rubrum and C. persicum roseum, both desirable companions to the 

 species. 



C. Enropoium. — This is a large-growing species with roundish heart- 

 shaped toothed leaves, often zoned on the upper surface with pale 

 green. The flowers vary in colour in different individuals, but in 

 nature the most common colour is white or rose, or both shading into 

 each other, but purple and various shades of red are also met with, and 

 in cultivation there are varieties distinguished by different combina- 

 tions of these colours. Flowers in August and September. Britain 

 and other parts of Europe. 



C. liederifolium is perhaps, from the scientific point of view, not 

 distinct from the last species, but the form usually vended under the 

 name has distinctly angular leaves with a cordate base, and the 

 flowers are lilac shading into rose. Flowers in August and September. 

 South of Europe, usually in company with C. Europseum. 



C. Neapolitanum is rather a variable species, and sometimes con- 

 founded with the two preceding. The leaves are most variable ; but 

 most commonly they are of the ivy shape, with a cordate base, and dis- 

 tinctly zoned on the upper surface. The flowers are dark red, shading 

 into pink or pale purplish red at the tips of the lobes of the corolla. 

 Native of Italy. 



C. Jlftorale is a little-known species in this country. The corms 

 are small. The leaves are roundish and cordate at the base, and 

 prettily marbled on the upper surface. The flowers are bright rose ; 

 the lobes of the corolla short and broad. Flowers in March and April. 



W. S. 



BOTTOM-HEAT. 



It might be reasonably supposed — as was formerly argued by Knight, I think — that 

 plants like the Pine or Melon, for instance, should not require a more stimulating 

 root-temperature than would be communicated to the soil in which they grew 

 from the atmosphere of the hothouse, provided the temperature of the air 

 was at all times properly regulated, seeing that in their native climate the heat 

 of the ground is entirely dependent upon the temperature of the air, or solar 

 radiation ; and I conceive that but for our cloudy sky we might dispense altogether 

 with hot-water pipes or other artificial means of supplying bottom-heat to some 



2 P 



