324 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER ANT) COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 11, 1869. 
He studied the Cyclamens in their native wilds, in all 
parts of the Swiss and Italian Alps, and was a favoured 
correspondent with the venerable Tenore, the celebrated 
Italian botanist, who was also, then, the best authority in 
the world for these Cyclamens. 
From about 1818 to 1830, there was a jealous opposi¬ 
tion hi British botany, or rather among British botanists, 
and botanical works— a fact which our friend, Dr. 
Bindley, could vouch for, for he was in the heat of it, 
and generally in the front of the battle. At that period, 
there were more wrong names manufactured in England, 
to serve this opposition, than there ever were before, or 
since. So that those garden amateurs who, like my em¬ 
ployer, had a natural turn for scientific inquiry, and bota¬ 
nical studies, were constantly fretted, and practically 
hindered, by the very people from whom they ought to 
expect the greatest help—the authors of, and writers in, 
botanical works. The rage for species, and specific dis¬ 
tinctions, which are now found to be all but useless, and not 
founded upon nature, was then at its height; and every 
plant which reproduced itself from seeds was put down as a 
genuine species, by those wranglers, and by all whom they 
could influence by their special writings. There were some 
few,however, who could not be convinced by suchspeciality 
without actual and positive proof from nature’s own lap; 
and my life, as a master gardener, began with one of 
those amateurs who had too much practical knowledge 
of plants to be led away with baseless theories and false 
reasonings about species and affinities ; and the greatest 
part of my work, with my own hands, was, to prove which 
were and which were not natural species, or which of such 
and such species and genera came nearest to one another, 
by raising quantities of plain and crossed seedlings every 
year, without the slightest aim at improving one kind 
out of a hundred—a thing which would now seem all but 
madness, when the thing itself is familiar enough. 
The Cyclamens were one race out of many which passed 
through our hands with no more aim than this proving of 
species; but all that I recollect about them is, that one called 
Clusii, by Dr. Lindley; and another, which was named 
repandum, by Sweet; are both wrong names, for one of the 
commonest of all the Cyclamens. But whether they were 
the same as hederafolium, I cannot call to mind. I think 
Tenore wrote that Lindley merely wished to show that 
Clusius first named that Cyclamen; and that Sweet’s re¬ 
pandum was the same as Sibthorp’s something else, in the 
“ Elora Grasca; ” and that both were the same as Clusius’ 
Ivy-leaved kind ; but that the kind which usually went by 
the ’name of Ivy-leaved, or hedercefolium, was not Clusius’ 
plant. They all come from seeds, and some of them vary 
exceedingly from seeds, so much so, that, at the time of 
the rage for species, many of the seedling varieties were 
named as species. But there has not been a new species 
of Cyclamen discovered since Linnseus’ day, or, at all 
events, since Miller’s time. Miller’s hedercefolium, however, 
is not the same, for Clusius’ hedercefolium flowers in the 
spring, and Miller’s hedercefolium flowers in the autumn. 
This hederafolium is now called Europceum, by botanists; 
but, in books and in collections, hedercefolium is a puzzler 
to this day; and the way to make the difference reconcileable 
with cultivated plants, is, to mind that the true heredcefolium 
blooms in the spring. Any Cyclamen you may be growing 
under the name of hedercefolium, or Ivy-leaved, if it does 
not invariably flower in the spring, is not true. But there 
are two kinds which bloom in the autumn, and go for Ivy¬ 
leaved, or hedercefolium, and it is not so easy to know them 
from one another. Europceum is one of them, and the 
smallest-leaved ; and Neapolitanum the other, with larger 
leaves; but, like Persicum, it varies very much in the leaf 
—hardly two of them come up alike. 
Coum and vernum are just in the same condition as the 
throe kinds of hedercefolium. The one passes for the other, 
and the other for that, all over the three kingdoms, so that 
there is no dependance on getting the one or the other true 
to name. Coum is the most common ; or, judging from my 
own luck, I should say vernum is extremely scarce. I could 
not pick it up anywhere on the Continent, about 1833; 
aud having taken to the Cyclamen since Atkinsoni came 
out, I am no better off; for, send for it where I may, and 
offer for it what I will, nothing comes to hand but Coum, 
or a seedling which is all but Coum. Hence, this call and 
warning about Cyclamen. 
Miller says the Coum of herbalists is foliis orbicu- 
latis planis —that is, with plain, round leaves; pediculis 
brevibus Jloribus minoribus, with shorter and weaker foot¬ 
stalks to the flowers, than any of the rest; while his 
Cyclamen vernum is foliis orbiculatis-cordatis, or with 
round leaves, heart-shaped at the bottom. The two lobes 
of the heart overlap each other, with the footstalk in the 
centre. The underside of the leaf is red, as in Coum 
inferne purpurasccnte. “ This is, at present, rare in 
England,” says Miller; “the leaves of this sort are large 
(they are double the size of those of Coum), orbicular, 
heart-shaped at the. base ; the leaves and flowers of this come 
up from the root at the same time (in November); the 
flowers are of a purplish colour, and their bottoms are of a 
deeper red; and it requires protection from the frost in 
winter.” Now, who has this Cyclamen vernum to offer 
for love or money. It used to come into bloom just when 
the old Chrysanthemums were at their prime; and before 
Coum or any of the Persicums were open vernum was over 
for that year. But forced Persicums could be had now as 
early as vernum; and vernum being the link between the 
autumn-flowering and the spring-blooming kinds, might 
not the cioss-breeder presume on having Cyclamen in 
bloom from the end of July to the last of the May following, 
provided that vernum is a seeder, and that it would cross 
with some of the others? That is just the purpose for 
which I want vernum, and I should be most glad to take 
it either for love or money, if I could but make sure of it. 
Mr. Gordon gives another mark of vernum, which might 
be useful in tracing it out. He says, vernum has the leaves of 
Persicum and the flowers of Coum; but, in the Experi¬ 
mental, we have at least ten kinds of leaves on Persicum. 
The wisest thing that Mr. Gordon ever said was this, “ the 
name hyemale (winter) would be far more appropriate to 
this distinct species, for it has done flowering before the 
spring commences.” Yet Lindley, Don, Sweet, and Loudon, 
mark vernum as flowering in March and April, in their 
books, catalogues, anddictionaries; so that none of these 
authors knew the true Cyclamen vernum of Miller first, 
and of Gordon last. Miller and Gordon were more prac¬ 
tical than the others, and wrote from what they practised, 
and I want to get the plant they meant. The vernum of 
all other British writers, as far as I know, must be Coum. 
In all the collections which I have examined for the last 
ten years, Coum has taken the name of vernum ; and all 
the vernums which have been sent to the Experimental 
garden have turned out nothing but Coum. Atkinsi, or, 
more properly, Atkinsoni, is a cross from Coum by Per¬ 
sicum ; but the habit of the whole of that breed, which is 
now so gay, and so very numerous, at the Wellington Road 
Nursery, takes after Coum. Therefore, they must, or ought to 
be managed, in potting, quite differently from the Persicum 
race, and also from the Italian race, represented by hederce¬ 
folium, Neapolitanum, and Europceum —the only three dis¬ 
tinct species kuown to science, after Coum, vernum, and 
Persicum. Coum is different in habit from all these, but 
whether the habit of vernum be the same as that of Coum, 
I forget, for it is more than a quarter of a century since I 
last saw a plant of vernum, which, I fear, is all but lost, 
notwithstanding that nine growers out of ten believe they 
possess it. 
None of our readers need be told, now-a-days, that those 
of us who know most about bulbous plants prefer to have 
all bulbs, in pots, covered with the mould. Even the Cy¬ 
clamen Persicum some of us would prefer being all covered, 
except just the very crown, where the leaves and flowers 
come from ; but no mould should touch either the bottom 
of the leafstalk, or the flower-stem. But that way of doing 
