THE 



Canadian Horticulturist 



Vol XVIII. 



1895, 



No. 3. 



THE CYCLAMEN. 



HESE delightful winter and early spring flowering plants have 

 of late years been so much improved that we shall scarcely 

 recognize the small, comparatively insignificant blooms we used 

 to meet with, in the splendid, large, broad-petalled, distinctly- 

 colored forms and highly-scented types of this flower, now so 

 plentiful. For this great change we are much indebted to such 

 men as Mr. Warren, of Isleworth, also a Mr. May of the same 

 place. Each of these growers have low spanned houses, 

 graded in temperature, in St. Margarets, West Middlesex, in 

 which the culture is about the same, but there is a difference in the strain. The 

 old type of the grandiflora family, with its long stems and large flower, has 

 given place, in response to the persistent efforts of these and other London 

 florists, to a dwarf stem of leaf and flower, without any diminution in size of 

 bloom. They are now of a very robust constitution, remarkably free-blooming, 

 and in every way well adapted to house cultivation, and as house plants have 

 few equals, if any superior. Few flowers respond with such a generous profusion 

 of bloom, to moderate care and cultivation, as does this plant. This fact is 

 impressed upon me more every season as I look upon the magnificent array 

 of color, smiling as they stand upon the benches, clean, bright and cheerful, 

 like the refreshing greetings of the sunbeams after dark and dreary days. It 

 gives a thrill of real delight, such as the millionaire cannot abstract from 

 the intrinsic worth of his gold, as we approach them and count, as I did this 

 morning, on one plant nearly 100 perfect blooms, and buds uncountable, nest- 

 ling at the base of the leaf stems and on the crown. To the ladies, let me say^ 



