The genus Cyclamen has yielded one of the world's most important tuberous crops loved by professional and amateur growers alike. With only twenty currently recognized species, the genus is still a tricky one fraught with missteps for the unwary plant scientist. It's not surprising that so few people have been willing to tackle this genus in recent years. Yet Christopher Grey-Wilson has written and published two books on cyclamen within the last decade. Both have been occasions to be celebrated and this new book is, in many ways, an improvement over his 1988 book.

The earlier work focused on the botany, taxonomy, cytology, history, culture and geography of the species. The current book includes that information (sometimes in a different arrangement) and much more.

As the two books are on the same subject and by the same author, some comparisons are in order. The earlier book contained 147 pages, 12 color plates (paintings), 27 line drawings and 11 maps. The current book contains more pages, much more text, more line drawings and 12 even better maps.

The current volume also contains a plus the previous volume did not have: 140 color photographs; there were no photos in the previous book. These pictures are a real treat, showing leaf and flower color variations you'll never see in your local general plant nursery but which are sure to make you want to order some new varieties' seeds or plants forthwith. Locating so many good photos of cyclamen over such a broad spectrum of leaf and flower types and including them in one book amounts to a triumph in itself. While I admire the charm of the paintings and drawings in the older work, I can't deny the dazzling effects produced by the color photos in this version. Truly wonderful beauty is here shown, making one wish for acres to set aside simply for the culture and enjoyment of this diverse genus in which the flowers, often enough, are simply a bonus-admittedly an important bonus-to the incredible beauty of the leaves.

In fact, because the leaf markings and leaf shapes of some species can be so diverse and their flowers so ornamental there are individual species of Cyclamen one could concentrate on for a lifetime and therein find great satisfaction, C. coum, C. hederifolium and C. graecum for instance. Mr. Grey-Wilson pictures many variations within these species and describes even more.

But the so-called florist's cyclamen, C. persicum is the queen of the genus. Lovely and graceful in its wild forms, spectacular and bodacious in its numerous cultivated forms this species has accommodated itself wonderfully well to the hybridizer's brush. Mr. GreyWilson acknowledges this fact by devoting considerable space to this species and its (mostly intraspecific) hybrids.

Mr. Grey-Wilson recognizes a new species since writing his 1988 book-Cyclamen colchicum-raising the total species count from 19 to 20. Also, he recognizes three more interspecific hybrids since his previous cyclamen book raising this count from 4 to 7. (Two additional interspecific hybrids are mentioned but they remain unconfirmed, and therefore, as yet, unnamed.)

While this new book contains at least twice as much information as its ancestor, the type font has been reduced to make room for all that additional information. This may make the book a little hard to read for some people. To compensate partially for that disadvantage the book is printed on a good coated paper stock, another sign of its overall improved quality over its predecessor.

The current volume contains extensive information on cyclamen species, varieties and cultivars as well as sources for seeds and plants, information which no doubt will be met with cheers by growers and hybridizers who need such information or who just enjoy reading about the numerous diverse variations on a theme which have been wrought over the millennia by Nature and over the last (at least) 17 decades by people. But the hybridizer's brush is not always necessary in order to acquire new cyclamen types. So generous is Nature with leaf and flower variations within this genus that, often, simple observation and selection from among growing batches of wind- or insect-pollinated seedlings or the collection of seeds from new types discovered growing in the wild-and the raising and selection of their seedlings-are sufficient to bring fine new forms into cultivation.

This is a grand book on a Mediterranean genus now grown and loved throughout the world. For those of us who are cyclamen enthusiasts, it's a must-have.

Charles Hardman