Plate 163. 



CYCLAMEN PERSICUM-GIGANTEUM. 



The subject of our present illustration, recently sketched at Mr. B. S. "Williams's 

 Nursery at Upper Holloway, is by far the finest form that we have at present seen of the 

 Persian Cyclamen, and will, no doubt, form the commencement of an almost new type of flower. 

 Mr. Williams's plant has very broad, beautifully mottled leaves, of great substance, and 

 borne on stout flower-stalks. It throws its flowers well above the foliage, each flower being 

 from two to two and a half inches in depth ; the broad petals being of great substance, pure 

 white, with a fine, bold, violet-purple eye. 



The Cyclamen has been introduced into this country many years, but it is only within 

 the last few years that its superior qualities have been discovered as a decorative plant. 

 Whether for cut flowers, used as a table plant, or for general decorative purposes, it is at 

 present almost unrivalled. 



The seed of the Cyclamen is ripe in July and August, and should be sown from Sep- 

 tember to December, in a temperature of 50°, in a light fibrous soil, with a little leaf mould 

 and sharp sand. The pots should be well drained, and when the seedlings are fit to be 

 pricked out, some ten or twelve should be planted in a forty-eight sized pot. When large 

 enough, these plants should be again potted singly in sixty-sized pots, and repotted for the 

 third time in stiffer soil — leaf-mould, sand, and well-decayed manure ; i.e., when the sixty- 

 sized pots become full of roots. A continual, though slight artificial heat should be main- 

 tained in the houses in which Cyclamens are growing, and a free current of air should 

 be allowed, which should be regulated as to amount according to the state of the weather. 

 All stimulants, in the way of manure or guano-water, should be avoided, and nothing used 

 except pure soft water ; and while growing, during summer the foliage should be kept well 

 syringed and clean. It only remains for us to add, that the whole stock of the unrivalled 

 beauty now figured is in the hands of Mr. B. S. Williams, of the Victoria and Paradise 

 Nurseries, Upper Holloway, and that it is now being sent out by him. 



Plate 164. 

 ODONTOGLOSSUM ROEZLII-ALBUM. 



So little is at present known of Odontor/lossum Roezlii, that doubts have not unreasonably 

 been entertained as to whether the white-flowered plant we now figure is the typical form, 

 or whether it normally possesses a larger inflorescence, with brilliant purple splashes and 

 stripes on the flowers, as illustrated by us on Plate 90, of the present Series. The subject 

 of our present plate, which we think we are right in considering a white variety of 0. Roezlii, 

 has been selected for figuring, from the rich collection of Mr. William Bull, of Chelsea, 

 whence the tinted variety also came ; and he has several times exhibited the white-flowered 

 form at our more recent Flower Shows, where it has been most deservedly admired for its 

 extreme purity of colour, and great substance. Like the coloured variety, it is furnished 

 with pale-green, linear-ligulate leaves, and oblong-compressed pseudo-bulbs. 



Odontoglossum Roeslii-album is a strikingly beautiful free-flowering New Grrenadan epiphyte, 

 allied to 0. vexillarium and 0. Rlialcenopsis, and the peduncles support several large flowers, 

 which, in the variety now figured, are snow-white, with a central touch of sulphur yellow. 

 Though white-flowered Orchids are not generally held in such high estimation as the species 

 which bear highly-coloured flowers, yet the former are simply invaluable in all good collec- 

 tions for the manner in which they light up and contrast with other blooms. 



