168 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



not found to be beneficial to the seedlings. The best Cyclamen 

 he had grown had been raised in a somewhat cooler atmosphere. 

 If the seed were sown, say, in August, and kept cool and shaded, 

 it no doubt took longer to germinate, but the stronger the 

 seedlings would grow. When young, Cyclamen persicum cannot 

 have too much moisture ; a dry heat is fatal to them when they 

 are babies, but they like a somewhat drier condition when the 

 corms are fully matured. 



Mr. George Paul said he was a great lover of hardy 

 Cyclamen, and had been fortunate enough to obtain the famous 

 collection of the late Mr. Atkins. That gentleman was known to 

 many lovers of plants as one who devoted many years of his life 

 to the study of hardy plants, but particularly to Cyclamen. 

 With his collection came a note-book in which were recorded the 

 dates and places where many of his specimens were collected, 

 some of the plants having been in his garden for five-and-twenty 

 years, a fact which testified most fully to the great longevity of 

 the corms. Mr. Wilks having alluded to the fact that hardy 

 Cyclamen thrive at the base of thin trees, Mr. Paul said his 

 plants were a£ the foot of a large Elm, the roots of which absorbed 

 the moisture from the soil, leaving it comparatively dry for 

 the Cyclamen. Limestone situations are favourite spots for 

 Cyclamen, and if they are grown in rubble they will thrive. 

 C. neapolitanum does very well in it, and all those kinds which 

 grow along the Mediterranean shores. Cyclamen, he said, had 

 a peculiar habit of burying their seed-pods underground, and 

 the result often was, when they had not been gathered, that 

 numerous seedlings were found coming up the next season. The 

 sooner the seeds were sown after the pods had burst the better, 

 in regard to hardy Cyclamen, as the seedlings would then 

 certainly be stronger. This fact explained why people who 

 bought Cyclamen seed from shops did not obtain good results — 

 because the seed had lost much of its vitality by keeping. 

 Hardy Cyclamen were a very beautiful race of plants, and should 

 be more generally cultivated. Some of them [e.g. neapolitanum) 

 did not object to a fall of snow even, but will push their flowers 

 up through it. 



Mr. Martin, who had been much interested in the papers 

 read and the remarks which followed, said that the Cyclamen 

 was everyone's plant when grown, but it was not everyone's plant 



