JANUARY 11 



habit of the petals when beginning to fade to twist 

 themselves into miniature corkscrews. And in the 

 same connection it would be interesting to know 

 whether this coiling takes place in the double cycla- 

 mens (presumably not seed-bearing). I have never 

 seen the double cyclamen, and do not suppose the 

 beauty of the flower would be increased by doubling ; 

 but oiu" forefathers had it ; it is described by Parkin- 

 son, and appears in some of the old Dutch and French 

 engravings of spring flowers, and, I suppose, it was 

 known to Eapin (1672), for so only can I interpret 

 his lines : — 



' Grfeca peregrinis venit cyclaminus ab oris, 

 CorcyrEe geminam montes peperere f requentem. ' 



The literary interest of the cyclamen is connected 

 with the name. There can be no doubt that it is 

 the plant described by Theophrastus, and Dioscordes, 

 and Pliny, and mentioned by Theocritus ; and the 

 curious thing is that the long Greek name K-vKAa/^itvos 

 has held its own through the Latin Cyclaminus into oiu- 

 common English cyclamen. In two of the oldest 

 English Vocabularies cyclamen is translated ' slite,' 

 but the name is not given in the later Vocabularies, 

 and seems never to have been a common English 

 name. There is an old English name for it, the 

 sowbread, but I can find no evidence that that was 



