CUTTING-BOX. 
CYCLAMEN. 
or leaves on the upper extremity of every cutting | drical, unbranched trunk, of a,structure and char- 
as can, with the aid of the moisture within a 
bell-glass, be kept from collapsing. 
Cuttings, not only of woody plants, but of many 
herbaceous ones, are capable of being struck in 
water, The process for striking a cutting of 
Nerium oleander in water has long been known ; 
and, though different in some of its phenomena, 
from the processes for some other plants in water, 
will sufficiently illustrate the principles and the | 
general manner of all. The vessel for the cut- 
ting should be a phial of white glass, with a neck 
of at least three quarters of an inch in width, so 
as to permit the removal of the young plant with- 
out much pressure on its newly-formed roots; 
the cutting ought to be of green wood, and taken 
off at some time of the full growing season of 
spring and summer ; and the water should always 
be sufficient in quantity to immerse an inch or 
more of the lower part of the cutting, and should 
be maintained at a temperature of about 70° 
Fahrenheit, either by being kept in a warm room 
exposed to the sun’s rays, or by being plunged 
into a warm bed of leaves, tan, or other calorific 
mass of slowly fermenting vegetable matter. No 
manurial ingredient, not even so much as a little 
moss, should be introduced to the water; and 
the young plant should be withdrawn from the 
phial, and planted in soil as soon as its roots are 
fairly formed. Cuttings of balsams, whether 
small or large, freely strike root in water. Cut- 
tings of melons will strike in water in a very short 
| period,—sometimes so short as three days; and 
| when the plantlets of them are transferred to: 
small pots of heath mould, they produce perfect 
balls of roots in less than a week. Cuttings of 
gloxinias, heliotropes, aloysias, gardenias, melas- 
tomas, thunbergias, salvias, erythrinas, gesnerias, 
turneras, and many other greenhouse plants, 
have all been found on experiment to strike rea- 
| dily in water; cuttings of dahlias have been suc- 
cessfully tried; and probably the cuttings of an 
exceedingly great number of plants would suc- 
ceed. Cuttings struck in soil undergo their 
changes, either of success or of failure, in the 
dark, so that they cannot be observed for the 
purposes of either economy or soil; and some- 
times, after exciting hopes for months, they damp 
_ off and perish. But cuttings placed in water are 
} clearly and instructively observable through all 
the progress of either their decay or their devel- 
opment ; they require no nicety, give no trouble, 
and consume but a minute or so of time in being 
adjusted to their position ; and when they succeed 
at all, they never droop, but grow surely and 
steadily into complete development. 
CUTTING-BOX. A machine for cutting hay, 
straw, haulm, or other kinds of fodder, into small 
pieces. See Cuarr-Currer. 
CYCAS. A genus of curious, economical, sago- 
yielding, tropical plants, constituting, with the ge- 
nus zamia, the natural order Cycadeze or Cyca- 
daceze. The plants of this order have a low, cylin- 
acter partly exogenous and partly acrogenous, and 
they possess the general appearance of palms, the 
foliage of tree-ferns, the inflorescence of gigantic 
equisetums, and the fructification of some kinds 
of cone-bearing trees. Their stems contain con- 
centric layers in the manner of exogens, and at 
the same time secrete a voluminous farinaceous 
pith in the manner of palmaceous endogens; their 
leaves unroll from a single terminal bud in the 
manner of acrogens; and their fruit proceeds 
from their leaves in the manner of ferns, and has 
a peltately-scaly conical structure, in the manner 
of true conifers. All are dicecious; and those of 
the cycas genus are distinguished from those of 
the zamia genus by the botanical characters of 
the female flowers. Nearly thirty species have 
been introduced to the hothouses of Britain ; and 
at least five of these belong to the genus Cycas. 
The revolute species, Cycas revoluta, was brought | 
to Britain from China about 110 years ago; and 
has, within the last twenty years, been in’several 
instances brought to flower. A plant of it which 
flowered in 1837 was purchased for the Royal So- 
ciety of Horticulture at the price of fifty guineas, 
and exhibited for a short period at the Egyptian 
Hall. Another plant of it which flowered in 1828, 
at Cally in Kirkeudbrightshire, and which pro- 
bably was the first that ever flowered in Britain, 
is supposed to have been upwards of 40 years 
old. Its stem was 18 inches high and 30 inches 
in circumference ; its fan of leaves comprised 36 
long feathery-looking fronds, and 27 feet in cir- 
cumference; and its catkin rose vertically from 
the apex of the stem, measured 34 inches in 
height and 15 inches in maximum circumference, 
and was set round, in a regularly imbricated 
manner, with about 1,500 scales. All the species, 
but particularly C. revoluta and C. circinalis, the 
latter introduced to Britain from India in 1700, 
produce from their pith a coarse kind of sago, 
and are frequently, though quite improperly, de- 
signated sago palms. 
CYCLAMEN. A genus of tuberous and bul- 
bous-rooted beautifully-flowering plants, of the 
primrose tribe. The ivy-leaved species, C. heder- 
efolium, is a native of Italy, Austria, and other 
parts of continental Hurope, and now grows wild 
on banks and by the side of hedges in some parts 
of Britain. Its root is orbicular, compressed, 
and comparatively large; its flowers rise imme- 
diately from the root, with long fleshy footstalks,. 
and have a purple colour, and appear in August 
and September ; its leaves are numerous and an- 
gularly cordate, marked with black in the middle, 
and about 6 or 7 inches long, and they rise im- 
mediately from the root, begin to appear soon 
after the evolution of the flowers, continue to 
grow during all the winter and the spring, and 
begin to decay in May, and are entirely dried up 
in June; and after the flowers have fallen, the 
footstalks twist up like a screw, enclosing the 
germen in the centre, lying close to the ground 
