The Botanical Magazine v 2

[Illustration: 44]

LINNÆUS in this, as in many other genera, certainly makes too few species, having only two; MILLER, on the contrary, is perhaps too profuse in his number, making eight. The ascertaining the precise limits of species, and variety, in plants that have been for a great length of time objects of culture, is often attended with difficulties scarcely to be surmounted, is indeed a Gordian Knot to Botanists.

Our plant is the Cyclamen persicum of MILLER, and has been introduced into our gardens long since the European ones; being a native of the East-Indies, it is of course more tender than the others, and therefore requires to be treated more in the style of a green-house plant.

It is generally cultivated in pots, in light undunged earth, or in a mixture of loam and lime rubbish, and kept in frames, or on the front shelf of a green-house, where it may have plenty of air in the summer, but guarded against too much moisture in the win