CYCLAMEN, in botany, a genus belonging to the family Primulaceae, containing 18 species native in the mountains of central Europe and the Mediterranean region. C. europaeum (sow-bread) is found as an introduced plant in copses in Kent and Sussex. The plants are low growing herbs with large tuberous rootstocks, from the surface of which spring a number of broad, generally heart-shaped or kidney shaped, long-stalked leaves, which in cultivated forms are often beautifully marbled, ribbed or splashed. The flowers are nod ding, and white, pink, lilac or crimson in colour. The corolla has a short tube and five large re flexed lobes. After flowering the stalk becomes spirally coiled, drawing the fruit down to the soil. Cyclamen is a favourite winter and spring flowering plant. C. persicum is probably the best known. It is a small-growing kind bearing medium-sized leaves and numerous flowers. C. gigan teum is a large, strong-growing species ; not quite so free flower ing as C. persicum, but in all other respects superior to it when well grown. C. papilia differs in the fringed character of the petals. It has been obtained by selection from C. persicum. There is also a beautiful crested race, probably derived from C. giganteum.