JANUARY 9 



but Gerard's localities of British plants are not to 

 be trusted, and his editor, Johnson (who had no 

 scruple in speaking disrespectfully of him), says it 

 was never found wild in England. Turner, in 1548, 

 could not go beyond, 'I heare saye that it groweth 

 in the west countrye of Englande'; and Parkinson 

 says (no doubt with an eye to Gerard), 'There 

 groweth none in the places where some have reported 

 them to grow.' Still the mere report that the plant 

 was found wild shows that it was at that time a 

 common plant. 



I have a decided affection for this cyclamen partly 

 for its early appearance, even before the spring is 

 with us ; partly from old associations, dating from 

 my earliest childhood ; and partly from the botanical 

 and literary interest of the plant, on which, even at 

 the risk of being tedious by speaking too much of 

 one plant, I must say something. The botanical 

 interest is chiefly connected with the curious habit of 

 the plant to form its seed-vessel in the usual way, 

 and then for the seed-vessel to hang down, and by 

 a succession of coils of its flower-stem to bring the 

 seed-vessel close to the ground, and there to bury 

 it. The cyclamen belongs to the primrose family, 

 and not only is it unlike all the other members of 

 the family in this peculiar habit, but, so far as I 



