The MGS Forum

Plants for mediterranean gardens => Bulbs (including other geophytes with corms, tubers, rhizomes etc) => Topic started by: Alisdair on August 01, 2011, 07:23:10 AM

Title: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on August 01, 2011, 07:23:10 AM
One of the best bulbs for mediterranean gardens is Cyclamen persicum - the wild species, as opposed to the many colourful "pot plant" cyclamen cultivars that have been bred from it. It is elegant but tough, beautifully fragrant, and stands any amount of heat during its summer dormancy (when it should be left unwatered). As with most other cyclamen species, the silvery patterns on the leaves vary from plant to plant, giving interest even when they are not flowering. Here is one of the thousands which we saw growing wild, during the MGS trip to Israel in March; this one was growing in a rock cleft on Mount Hermon.
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In a pine wood lower down there were thousands upon thousands, glowing in the shadows or picking up shafts of sunlight, most of them the classic colour as in the first picture, but some much pinker, often a good clear warm pink with no hint of magenta. The air was heady with their scent. Our friend Johannes, picking his way among them (very difficult to avoid treading on any!), gives an idea of the scale:
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Title: Re: Cyclamen persicum
Post by: HansA on August 01, 2011, 08:20:30 AM
Fantastic pictures Alisdair!

Cyclamen persicum grows very well here and is seeding freely ( not as much as C. hederifolium). A very generous friend gave me seeds of the autumflowering form a few years ago, perhaps they will get the first flowers this year. :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on August 01, 2011, 08:38:58 AM
Thanks, Hans!
And that gift from your friend underlines what Heini was saying about the generosity of gardeners.
Title: Re: Cyclamen seed
Post by: Chantal on August 01, 2011, 02:23:34 PM
If you want more cyclamen seeds, Hans, we have cyclamen coum, hederifolium and graecum seeds on our seed list. It is a free service for all MGS members. Just click on the MGS website (http://www.mediterraneangardensociety.org/seedlist.html) for the conditions.
Perhaps, you are allready a member? sorry if I repeat some times the same things.
Title: Re: Cyclamen graecum album
Post by: HansA on August 13, 2011, 03:01:25 PM
Thanks a lot Chantal - I had a look on the seedlist - there is a good number of quite interesting species!

First autumn flowering species started  - very early in my opinion.
Title: Re: Cyclamen graecum album
Post by: oron peri on August 16, 2011, 06:41:01 AM
Hans,

This is a real beauty, mine flower much later, about mid October and lust for quite a few weeks.It is not un comon to see C. graecum subsp graecum in flower already in mid August, i have seen it in Crete a couple of times, mainly in shaded rocky places where they get dew at night.
This species is superb in the garden and can resist grought probably better then any other Cyclamen.  
Title: Re: Cyclamen graecum
Post by: Alisdair on August 16, 2011, 08:55:36 AM
Yes, that white one is gorgeous, Hans; thanks!
As Oron says, Cyclamen graecum is wonderful for mediterranean-climate gardens. The lustrous patterns on the velvety leaves, almost every plant differing from its neighbours, make it very special even when it's not in flower, and it stands up to long months of drought without worry. In our hot south-slope garden in the south of Greece, plants in full sun can get rather stressed, and they do better with a little shade there, but I think that is exceptional; in milder gardens they seem perfectly happy in full sun.
If you start with one or two plants, you'll find that they do start seeding themselves around, and the resulting plants, usually "sown" by ants, will probably do even better than the ones you planted yourself. As the photo shows, these wild-sown plants can end up in the most extraordinary places, all sorts of intriguing nooks and crannies.
Incidentally we have a venerable plant of C. graecum, our very first cyclamen, which - NB this was before the CITES regulations, and before we knew better! - we dug up on the island of Skopelos nearly 40 years ago, and which, in its pot here under unshaded glass in the UK and left unwatered until it flowers, always comes into flower much earlier than any other graecums. This year it started in July.
Title: Re: Cyclamen graecum
Post by: HansA on August 16, 2011, 02:01:49 PM
Fantastic colour, Alisdair!
Have some seedlings of dark C. graecum, seeds came from Jim Archibald a few years ago - hope they will be as dark as yours.

Thanks a lot Oron - C. graecum album always are the first here (several plants of a group have started) - but I noticed also one flower on a plant which antecedents are from Cyprus - when I am not wrong C. graecum from Cyprus belong to subspecies anatolicum.
Title: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: cycnich on August 29, 2011, 03:49:33 PM
Here are a few interesting forms I have been lucky to see in the wild and to cultivate.
Title: Re: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: cycnich on August 29, 2011, 03:51:29 PM
A couple more
Title: Re: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: ezeiza on August 29, 2011, 05:32:43 PM
So very attractive.

To cultivate means you are propagating them from seed?
Title: Cyclamen persicum
Post by: fragman on August 29, 2011, 06:47:19 PM
and this is how it looks at the moment, seeds are long dispersed...
Title: Re: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: MikeHardman on August 29, 2011, 10:44:02 PM
Mmmm. Nice.

I found a specimen at RHS Wisley (S. UK), some years ago, with randomly marbled leaves (whereas there is almost always a symmetry to the variegation of Cyclamen leaves). Alan, the rock garden superintendent at the time, let me dig it up and try to propagate it. But over winter, the mice got it. :(
Title: Re: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 12:02:23 AM
Here's a few of my selections of C. hederifolium some of which were produced by gradual selection.
1st a marginal silver leaf
2nd a flower with a bold bloody nose.
3rd typical C. hederifolium on the left with a C. confusum on the right showing the size difference in flowers.
4th a dark flowered form.
Title: Re: Cyclamen Hederifolium
Post by: ezeiza on August 30, 2011, 01:00:30 AM
Wow, John! What a beauty.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on August 30, 2011, 07:27:00 AM
Lovely plants, Pat and John.
Just to say that I've merged these separate Cyclamen hederifolium and C. persicum threads into the main Cyclamen topic. We decided to keep genus as the heading for main topics instead of species, to keep navigating around the forum as simply as possible.
(So when you post in this thread, in the Subject line of your message put the species that you're talking about.)
Title: Cyclamen cyprium Galaxy Series
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 08:50:00 AM
Cyclamen cyprium Galaxy Series. Over ten years ago I was trying to select a good silver leaf of this species with some dull results but one plant produced a striking mottled effect from dense silver in the centre thinning to speckling. I found after a couple of generations that this came true from seed so have released it with the name Galaxy which I thought seemed fitting. I believe it should be known as a series because it is produced from seed and not vegetative propagation.
Title: Cyclamen graecum album
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 09:03:23 AM
This is my selection of Cyclamen graecum subsp. graecum f. album. From memory it is quite reminiscent of the original clone that Erna Frank collected with a good bold leaf. I seem to remember that she called it Grandma as for many years it was the source of all the white flowered plants though now others have been introduced.
Title: Re: Cyclamen graecum album
Post by: ezeiza on August 30, 2011, 03:24:36 PM
A more proper name than Galaxy could not be found. Are they for sale?
Title: Re: Cyclamen cyprium Galaxy Series
Post by: John J on August 30, 2011, 04:11:32 PM
In 2006 Cyclamen cyprium was chosen as the National Plant of Cyprus (The National Tree was chosen at the same time, Quercus alnifolia (Golden Oak of Cyprus). John's excellent photo clearly shows the distinctive 'M' shaped magenta blob at the base of each lobe. The characteristic crimson-purple underside of the leaves can just be seen too. I would love to have some of these Galaxy Series to go with the native ones I already have, all aquired legally I hasten to add!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 04:17:19 PM
Re. C. cyprium Galaxy Series. They were released through Ashwood nurseries and quite a few people have them now. I also believe that they are turning up in seed exchanges and will no doubt be turning up in the Cyclamen Society seed list if not there already.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: cycnich on August 30, 2011, 05:44:55 PM
Hello John
              Some lovely things among your posts. Your gaecum album looks very much as I expected and I have plants almost Identical, very close to the original. I love your Galaxy, I just worry that the clone will become weaker by poor selaction as has been the case in the past with many other plants. I think what many people do not realise is that second and third generation seedlings are so much better than the first and selection is a long term thing and you will not get instant results. I have posted a pic of one of several red hederifolium collected on Corfu 2007 (Argyrades group ) to compare with your dark selection. Here lies the problem, out of the 3 custodions of the  plants not one of us as managed to raise a plant of that colour from the seedlings.
Title: Re: Cyclamen cyprium
Post by: oron peri on August 30, 2011, 06:01:50 PM
In 2006 Cyclamen cyprium was chosen as the National Plant of Cyprus (The National Tree was chosen at the same time, Quercus alnifolia (Golden Oak of Cyprus). John's excellent photo clearly shows the distinctive 'M' shaped magenta blob at the base of each lobe. The characteristic crimson-purple underside of the leaves can just be seen too. I would love to have some of these Galaxy Series to go with the native ones I already have, all aquired legally I hasten to add!

John

If you are looking for a good leaf patterned plants , there is another fine selection called Cyprium E.S [Named after Elisabeth Strangman], these have fantastic silvery marked leaves and have been in commerce for quite a long time now. You can find it on every Cyclamen seed list as well as in specelized nurseries .
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on August 30, 2011, 06:04:16 PM
Hello Pat,
Good to have you here.

That is the finest dark color!!! :o
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 07:40:29 PM
I have grown ES for many years and have produced plants with almost white flowers, just a ghost mark which disappears as they age to white. The dark hederifolium was actually from the garden centre just down the road and I suspect that it is a different strain than those we are used to.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 11:25:57 PM
With the very dark plants from Corfu it may well be worth persevering by back crossing the babies onto the dark parent (if you haven't done this already) where even if the dark feature is recessive it should come out in a portion of the second generation (particularly if back crossed). Just a guess. I could easily be wrong of course.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 11:29:19 PM
This is one of my darkest selections of Cyclamen graecum subsp. graecum. Perhaps not very dark but nice with a good leaf.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on August 30, 2011, 11:47:42 PM
Another species that is usually quite or even very dull in the leaf department is C. repandum and it doesn't generally vary very much but I am aware of the striking almost silver leaf forms collected by the Cyclamen Society in Corsica? I have achieved a quite decent leaf after years of trying and they are generally much slower than C. hederifolium.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 02, 2011, 10:21:52 PM
When we were in Crete last autumn for the societies AGM I stayed on with Brian Constable and spent a few days in central Crete. Just south of Fourfouras we visited a site that I have known for many years where there is quite a good population of Cyclamen graecum subsp. mindleri (syn. subsp. candicum). As usual there were plenty of the pale flowered forms with a dark sinus which are very beautiful and typical of this subspecies. First picture.
Also here I noticed a few less usual darker flowered plants, not the first time I have seen this. Second picture.
I have seen some very good leaves at this site though many are normal to boringly marked. Not many leaves were up but here’s a pleasant one growing through a dense mat of a very dwarf form of Iris unguicularis subsp. certensis. Some of these Iris must be of a considerable age. Third picture.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 02, 2011, 10:24:08 PM
The attached pictures didn't come through so here they are. Regarding Cyclamen graecum subsp. mindleri.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 09, 2011, 11:31:52 PM
Here's another selected plant. Cyclamen graecum subsp. mindleri. This one has distinct short flowers but of some substance which I think is very attractive. Also this hails from one of the highest altitudes for this plant at around 1000m.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 10, 2011, 08:27:34 PM
Silver leaf forms of Cyclamen graecum subsp. graecum have been around for quite some time now starting out with 'Glifada' from Brain Mathew. After trying for a quite a few years I have managed to select out a silver leaf version of C. graecum subsp anatolicum. Here's a picture I took today.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 22, 2011, 11:56:20 PM
A few years ago I realised that one of my C. graecum had started to rot. Sometimes they develop a depression which holds water and can be the start of a rot. When it was dormant I de-potted it and scraped away the rotten tissue down to clean live tissue, dusted it with sulphur and left it dry for a while. After feeling confident that it had formed a dry new surface I repotted it and eventually it settled down again. You can probably make out that there are a number of short shoots dotted around mainly the upper surface of the tuber. Cyclamen tubers are quite quirky as they develop from a swollen hypocotyl which is the stem of a germinated seedling between the cotyledon leaves and the start of the root. Another example which doesn't go on to being a perennial is the radish. The tuber is at least 15 cm diameter.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 23, 2011, 12:18:08 AM
Because of my long time involvement with Crete I have grown C. creticum for many years. My first plant was quite a failure not because it died but because it never did anything. I made the mistake of keeping it dry in summer though cool and for three years it never grew but didn't die. Now I have more success but it is still quite sporadic with some years being far better than others. This plant has rather nice speckled leaves rather like those of C. repandum subsp. peloponnesiacum var. peloponnesiacum Pelops Series (what a name) though a duller grey.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 23, 2011, 08:06:17 PM
Here's a shot of the bench today with some of the C. graecum starting to go over now but still looking good.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 24, 2011, 08:02:52 AM
Lovely sight, John, you have them growing really well! :) :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 24, 2011, 08:36:49 AM
Thank you Alisdair but I assume yours and Helena's are growing well too?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 24, 2011, 11:06:04 AM
Yes, here's a picture taken earlier this morning of Cyclamen graecum plants growing in our high plastic tunnel here in the UK, in a raised bed; these flowers too are going over now:
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And outside in the open ground here are some Cyclamen hederifolium, also this morning (a bit misty), including a rather dark-flowered one. All these plants have grown from seed just scattered on the open ground:
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In the same general area, but growing in much deeper shade under a Pinus pumila (a handsome Mexican pine with particularly long needles - the plants seed themselves very happily in the duff below the needles), more C. hederifolium. You may be able to pick out the much rounder Cyclamen coum leaves among the hederifolium. The coum actually flower better under this level of shade than the hederifolium, and stand their ground well against the much more vigorous hederifolium - which is never the case if you try to grow the two plants together in more open light:
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Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 01, 2011, 08:48:46 AM
When I sow Cyclamen seeds I have always found it best to sow them fresh and I feel I get much better germination that way. I was discussing this with Oron recently and thought I may as well post this!
I collect the seeds when the pods have split open and may have dried out somewhat but the seeds are still usually sticky to some extent. I then soak them overnight in cold water. They then swell up and I drain them in a sieve and rinse them (which may remove some of the remaining sugary coating) and then pat them dry enough to handle with a paper kitchen towel. They are sown immediately either on the surface and covered with grit or as in this case (I didn't have any grit) covered with a bout 3 mm of compost. Kept moist they come up when temperatures drop. These are C. hederifolium from the dark flowered form I posted earlier.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 01, 2011, 08:52:03 AM
Here's a picture of one of the dark flowered strains that a friend bought from the garden centre at Wisley a couple of years ago. So not my plant. I took this last week when on watering duty!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 01, 2011, 09:46:40 PM
Down here i do it difrently as i find that the combination of a long period of high temperatures and  humid soil is fatal for the seeds as they get attacked by fungus and just rot quickly.

I collect the seeds when seed pods get soften, just befor they open, than i put them in a plate inside the house until seeds shrink and dry compleetly, about  two weeks time.
Than i put seeds in a paper envelope [not plastic] and keep them in the frig. [not much room left for food...]
When night temperatures reach 17c [around the 3ed week of October] i soak seeds in a glass of water with a drop of washing liquid for 24 hours.
Then i sow in small plastic pots, cover with 1cm of soil and 2cm of small sized grit.
Germinatin is close to 100% and takes about 30 days.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 01, 2011, 10:33:42 PM
Thanks John and Oron - a bit different I sow cyclamen ;)
I harvest the seed as Oron has described, let them dry about two weeks. Then I sow in summer without soaking them in a gritty soil without hardly any organic material and kept in shadow (an area which is watered regulary also in summer). Seed are on sharp sand in a depth of perhaps 3 cm - 1 cm covered by sand, 2 cm by gritt. Actually they are germinating in good numbers.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 01, 2011, 11:08:36 PM
Noticed  C. rohlfsianum is missing in this thread so far - so here a few I grow (hope later we will see a double form also ;)).
First one year old seedlings - the beautiful markings  on the leaves are still absent, but the shape of the leaves are near those of mature plants.
A seedling with green leaf and flowerstalks, and finally some mature plants.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 01, 2011, 11:56:44 PM
Growing Cyclamen from seed is always a great fun as you never know how the plants will look like.
Here some seedlings of dark flowering C. hederifolium which flower for the first time.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 02, 2011, 08:04:30 AM
That dark purple hederifolium is really unusual, Hans! And thanks for those rohlfsianum pictures - I'd love to go on a plant-wandering trip to the mediterranean-climate Cyrenaica strip of Libya where it comes from one day, and that might become more realistic now.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 09:44:14 AM
And to be able to grow C. rohlfsianum outdoors too.
Here's another selected seedling which is doing well now. Not that exiting but quite a charming leaf and uniform in character. C. hederifolium.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 09:47:17 AM
Here's another leaf. Leaves are my thing! This one is another of the seedling from producing a C. graecum subsp. anatolicum silver leaf. This one may have C. g. subsp. graecum in it. I like the bronze edge which may fade away as the leaf matures.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 10:16:22 AM
Hans do your dark C. hederifolium come well from seed and true to colour?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 10:17:38 AM
This is my darkest form of C. confusum from western Crete. I have seen much darker but it is nice with an average leaf.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 10:22:01 AM
I only have a few C. rohlfsianum but chosen for their leaves. The first has what I consider a typical pale flower. The second has a darker pink flower. The third has quite a dark flower but leaves not up with it at this stage. This is the only species that I do not water in summer until growth is showing. The only exception is with seedlings which I think are too small to bake all summer in pots.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 02, 2011, 05:56:12 PM
John's potted rohlfsianums, which I've seen a few times in the flesh, have a really sculptural quality - he grows them beautifully.  8)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Miriam on October 02, 2011, 09:33:27 PM
Wonderful pictures and plants!

Here Cyclamen graecum has started to flower after the first rain of the season:
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 02, 2011, 09:38:33 PM
Many of the C. graecum here are now past their best and the first of the Galanthus reginae-olgae is going over. We are in a heat wave though!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 04, 2011, 08:47:31 AM
Great plants John and Miriam!

Hans do your dark C. hederifolium come well from seed and true to colour?
Those are the first flowers of the plants, received the seeds from Jan Bravenboer in 2009. Would think there are about 10 percent of intense coloured plants (which vary) while the other are perhaps a bit darker than "normal", but not all flowered so far. Selected 3 out of the batch and grow them now isolated from the other.

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 10, 2011, 02:05:33 PM
I agree with John - C. rohlfsianum flowers are beautiful - but leafs are really spectacular - every plant is different. Here the first plant in leave, picture taken only a few days after posting the same situation in reply 42 and a bit darker flowering plant.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 10, 2011, 02:26:11 PM
Really natural look for that C. rohlfsianum, Hans, smashing! I never managed to keep the species going for more than a few years, under glass in the UK, and console myself that my very few plants came from the stock originally imported by Col. "Jimmy" Mars, that great cyclamenophile, which never seemed particularly robust. Seeing your plants, and John's, looking so splendid, I'm not inclined to try again myself!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 10, 2011, 08:10:48 PM
Why don't you try them in Greece Alisdair?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on October 10, 2011, 10:21:51 PM
Cyclamen hederifolium were out in Halkidiki as well last week, after the heavy rain, but I have never seen any with the dark colour shown in Hans' photos; a few may be pink, but they are mostly nearly white, except for the markings. I find it difficult to photograph them, the nicest ones are always hiding under some thorny bushes.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 10, 2011, 11:16:04 PM
Here's a sub zero picture of C. hederifolium. We mustn't forget that even though much of the Mediterranean has a mild climate frosts are far from unknown. I collected seed off Ranunculus asiaticus from Karpathos at sea level and for years Balckthorn Nursery sold this collection which was relatively frost hardy despite it's frost free origins.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 11, 2011, 07:37:59 AM
Rather off-topic, but John, you've touched on a subject dear to Jorun's heart - the fact that areas in the Mediterranean basin, even quite close to the sea, may be at an altitude where even quite sharp and prolonged frosts are likely. Jorun I think would claim that these areas are still "mediterranean", whereas some purists would say that the mediterranean-climate area had given way to a different ecotype at a certain altitude there and therefore couldn't be called "mediterranean".
A reminder that this forum is a very broad church, of course, so whatever your views on where "mediterranean" stops and starts, we're all always interested!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 11, 2011, 09:51:30 AM
Think most Cyclamen will last some frost, but C. rohlfsianum seems to be extremly sensitive. A few years ago we had one or two nights with temperatures between         -1ºC and 0ºC; the C.rohlfsianum lost all their leaves.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 11, 2011, 10:31:48 AM
Alisdair. I disagree about this subject and would say I am not off topic here. I absolutely agree that in my book (literally) on Crete around 1600 m is the maximum limit for truly Mediterranean species (e.g. Gagea graeca) and way below this for most. Regarding my Cyclamen hederifolium frosted picture which prompted your “off topic” remark. Cyclamen hederifolium can be coastal or found way up into the mountains as can other species including C. graecum. Cyclamen hederifolium var.confusum which I believe is considered restricted to NW Crete is well within the Mediterranean and with me has so far proved totally hardy, at least down to -15ºC.
I am of the understanding that the evolution of plants in the Mediterranean occurred through very different periods of climate change some of which were much colder than today. Other periods also much wetter. What grows there now is a mix of plants with different origins, some of which are very cold tolerant and not just at altitude. I mentioned Ranunculus asiaticus previously for this reason because despite being relatively restricted to coastal and low altitudes it does show some cold tolerance including sub-zero temperatures, not admittedly great hardiness.
Another example with very variable results is Rosemarinus officinalis. In the UK it is a commonly grown Mediterranean shrub which I would assume most people would agree is a perfectly acceptable Mediterranean plant. Some clones are very hardy varying to not even frost tolerant. I once grew a totally pendulous form that I collected seed from on the Amalfi coast in Italy which I grew in a hanging basket for many years, frost free. All of the attempts from propagated material were killed instantly with any sub-zero temperature.
There is a long list of such plants including truly Mediterranean that are mentioned in “The Dry Gardening Handbook” by Olivier Filippi. In this book cold tolerance is a major feature. His nursery is a Mecca for Mediterranean gardeners including many members of our society. I should also mention that to members like our Umbrian Carole hardiness is quite a relevant topic.
This leads me back to water wise gardening where I should continue this under that subject!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 11, 2011, 12:52:14 PM
John, I didn't mean at all that you were off topic, as you were and are very solidly on topic! I was just apologising for my own thoughts, which in the context of the Cyclamen topic were rather off topic: I was slapping my own wrist, not yours...
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 11, 2011, 02:11:25 PM
OK, understood and sorry if I over did my reply but I decided to bring in the hardiness issue. I think it's obvious that the boundaries for the mediterranean climate are blurred by many different aspects depending upon how you approach it.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 12, 2011, 10:47:15 AM
Autumn is arriving down here as well,
Here are the first blooms.
I have a new introduction of a very dark form of a cross done between my darkest C. confusum and C. africanum.
And one for Hans ;)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 13, 2011, 08:15:28 AM
Superb plants, Oron!
Thanks for sharing the pics!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 13, 2011, 09:33:34 AM
Thanks Hans,
Some more today mainly a mix of C. africanum, C. hederifolium and hybrids.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 13, 2011, 11:22:34 PM
With a few of my dark flowered straight C. hederifolium I have been trying to hybridise to produce a dark flowered silver leaf but last week at the RHS show in Westminster I purchased this plant which is pretty much there already. I have been fooled by this before and found that a purchased dark flowered plant has subsequently produced paler flowers! We''l have to wait and see!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fleur Pavlidis on October 14, 2011, 06:06:39 AM
How can that be? Are they dyed?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 14, 2011, 07:24:40 AM
No, it is possibly cultivation or some other factor but they don't have the intensity they had. It could be compost and feed but it will still come out dark just not as intense. The plants I have been working with have stayed dark to date. I merely mentioned that this one may not as it is a strain unknown to me!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 16, 2011, 09:16:19 PM
Autumn is arriving down here as well,
Here are the first blooms.
I have a new introduction of a very dark form of a cross done between my darkest C. confusum and C. africanum.
And one for Hans ;)

Hi Oron,    did you make the cross between africanum and confusum or is it a chance cross ?    I ask because I visited Tilebarn last week and Peter was saying that confusum doesn't cross with hederifolium. I thought ' great ' I don't need to islolate them.  But do I need to keep confusum separate from africanum ?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 17, 2011, 12:13:10 AM
Hey Jo, glad to see you here!!! :)

I have cross polinated the two, but unfortunately i can not isolate the plants in the small area i have.
and so i can not exclude the possibility that hederifolium is involved too.
But if you look carfuly on the flower form of the 2ed type, there is definatly africanum blood to it,
and the robustness is of C. confusum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 17, 2011, 08:54:47 AM
Without the time to check I assume that C. africanum is a polyploid species as is C. confusum. Does anyone know? If they do have the same chromosome count they might well be interfertile. In Crete where C. confusum grows it has been shown that other nearby populations (in the same valley) are allegedly C. hederifolium. It would make sense that they are incompatible if they can grow in together the same habitat. At a guess it is quite likely that C. confusum evolved in situ from a genetic mutation.
One problem with this is that it has also been said that many of the forms of C. africanum in cultivation are actually hybrids with C. hederifolium! Though it is also possible that C. hederifolium var. crassifolium may be involved here which again me be due to chromosome differences!!!!!!
C. graecum has supposed to have produced hybrids with C. hederifolium which may be possible with material unknown to me. I have certainly never seen a hybrid despite having grown them together for over 40 years and grown quite a lot of seed from them.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 18, 2011, 11:38:02 AM
Hi Oron,    I've got lots of pics from Israel, I should get on and post a few.  Thanks again for your leadership, we had such a fantastic trip  8) I wish we had your climate, I've worn wellie boots almost continually since.

Hi John,  looking up chromosomes for hederifolium in the most recent C G-W monograph he says that it was originally thought to be a stable diploid,  2n=34,   then when wild populations were studied on the Greek islands a polyploid 2n=68 population was identified.

 Presumably that is C confusum, because this book was published before confusum was given specific status ?

But also C africanum occurs as both 2n=34 and 2n=68,  the same as hederifolium.

So would the 2n=34 hed cross with the 2n=34 africanum,  and ditto for the 2n=64 pair


I agree that graecum and hederifolium do not hybridise when grown close together so was the occurence of X Whiteae a really lucky forced cross, it was deliberate according to the book,  but has anyone done it again ?      The plants of X Whiteae are quite distinctive.


cheers,  Jo

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 18, 2011, 11:45:59 AM
looking at your pictures of the beautiful dark confusum x africanum again Oron it would be really interesting to see the leaves when they come through, presumably they have they same ascending leaf stalks of the parents, thick and shiny as well ?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 18, 2011, 12:13:51 PM
I have it in my head that C. confusum is 2n=96!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 18, 2011, 10:00:00 PM
Ha ha,   way too late to think about that, three times the number of chromosomes is greedy.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 19, 2011, 09:30:21 AM
Photos of two Cyclamen from the Peloponnese
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 19, 2011, 03:27:40 PM
Beautiful pictures Hilary.  I love the very dark colour, when were the pictures taken and what species of cyclamen are they.  They look like spring flowerers to me ?    Cheers,  Jo
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 19, 2011, 05:10:19 PM
They were on Mount Parnon in the south of Greece.
Flowering in April.
Here is the photo I forgot to send.
In the company of people talking about the number of chromosomes in a plant I wouldn't dare give them a name more than pink or dark pink Cyclamen
Are you familiar with the geography of Greece?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 19, 2011, 06:21:20 PM
My Greek geography isn't good, perhaps a visit in April is called for  :)  I guess though that you have C rhodium peloponnesiacum as the pink flower and C rhodium vividum as the deep red one.  Was that the region that had all the wildfires a couple of years back ?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 19, 2011, 06:29:45 PM
Yes there had been forest fires in the area one or two years before.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fleur Pavlidis on October 19, 2011, 08:17:05 PM
A photo by Vina Michaelides from Taigetos 8 years ago. We labelled it then Cyclamen repans ssp peloponnesiacum but I see from Kit Tan that the repans is now redundant.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 19, 2011, 11:09:37 PM
From my experience and from a distant memory peloponnesiacum and vividum occupy slightly different (to very different) habitats. The vividum preferring more open and even drier habitats including some that was similar to exposed moorland with very short phrygana, less than 30 cm and wind exposed in full sun. At one location in the NE of the Parnon the two intermingled. This was the only place that we ever saw this happen though there may be others.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fleur Pavlidis on October 20, 2011, 07:56:15 AM
The photos seem to confirm your belief, John. The C. peloponnesiacum on Taigetos was definitely growing in shady woods, coming up through the leaf mold. Hilary's picture looks as if it was taken in an open rocky site.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 20, 2011, 10:40:48 AM
The dark pink Cyclamen was on the road between Chrisafa and Polydroso/ Tzitzinia on Mount Parnon.
We were on a drive through the  countryside and this was at the side of the road.
I love Greece in the spring when it is a natural rock garden.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 20, 2011, 11:04:14 AM
As you can see this is vividum growing in an open situation with Euphorbia rigida, a plant that really only grows in such conditions.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 20, 2011, 07:05:53 PM
Sorry,

Just to make order with the names:

The dark pink is C. repandum var. vividum
The light pink with dark eye is C. repandum subsp.peloponnesiacum.

Var vividum generlly grows in open habitat while subsp. pel. prefers more humid shady conditions.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 20, 2011, 08:08:01 PM
Thanks for the clarification
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 21, 2011, 11:50:31 AM
Hmm,  I was using the  classification that the Cyclamen Society is using for this years seed exchange. 

Cyclamen repandum peloponnesiacum is reclassified as Cyclamen rhodium peloponnesiacum,  and Cyclamen repandum vividum is now Cyclamen rhodium vividum.

Don't tell me they've changed it back again :o

It brings to mind a limmerick -

A contrary taxonomist at Kew
Cried ' It's Monday, I know what I'll do '
So he caused a hiatus
By changing the status
Of most of the species I grew  !

 :) :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 22, 2011, 06:41:39 PM
Infact Jo the names on the CSE are the last given.
Only that it seems they are not accepted by all and most of the collectors and botanic gardens  i know still use the old names...
Personaly i have stopped changing the labels of this group a few years ago, no use as by next monday they might change again and anyway if you grow them all toogether you get all the hybrids...
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 22, 2011, 06:48:11 PM
Oron, no excuse that's just laziness!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 23, 2011, 10:11:44 AM
I think a probably inaccurate Shakespear quote is in order,   ' a rose would smell as sweet by any other name '.

Oh well Oron, I'll enjoy them until Monday  ;D
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 23, 2011, 12:21:00 PM
Regarding the chromosome count of C. confusum. Melvyn Jope has informed me that it is 2n = 102 (not 96!).
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 23, 2011, 12:30:56 PM
So that makes it really different, and possibly explains its chunkiness.  What I don't see the is the supposed similarity with C. h. crassifolium.  The ones of these I have are skinny little things in comparison, very like ordinary C hed. They had been grouped together had they not ?

Does C. h. crassifolium have a scent like confusum by rhe way ?  I don't notice one on mine.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 23, 2011, 12:44:02 PM
If the tetraploid-look plants that are common on the Peloponnese are being called crassifolium, then yes, they often (but not always) are fragrant, as fragrant as the plants being called confusum.
Just a moderator's note on cyclamen naming: as there has been such a flood of proposed name changes in the last few years, with as Oron says no universal acceptance yet, I think it makes sense for this forum to be relaxed about the naming. I don't think we need stick by our usual rule of following the Kew and Missouri Bot Garden Plant List.
To go back to John's point about depth of colour perhaps being influenced by cultivation: the most deeply coloured C. graceum flowers we've seen in the wild have been in areas recently devastated by wild fires - presumably all those nutrients returned to the soil in the ash. 
 
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 23, 2011, 02:14:43 PM
Seen today at Ag Theodori on the Saronic Gulf.
Growing out of the sea pebbles under pine trees near the beach.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on October 23, 2011, 04:38:12 PM
I forgot the photo
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 23, 2011, 06:29:45 PM
Growing there shows how tough these plants are, Hilary; they do seem pretty resistant to salt spray.
That one's Cyclamen graecum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 24, 2011, 11:09:36 AM
Hi Alisdair, I'm fine about being relaxed about naming plants but if a member would like a plant identified and I give one name and Oron gives another is that not rather confusing.  The point of scientific naming is so we all know which plant we are talking about. 

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 24, 2011, 12:54:54 PM
Jo, Of course you are right about that. The best thing might be if the knowledgeable cyclamaniacs - who are the only people likely to be using the very latest names - made sure that they listed any aliases in general use at the same time. For instance, as you know, Kew reckon that the correct name for what has recently been called Cyclamen rhodium is still C. repandum subsp. rhodense, while they reckon similarly that Cyclamen rhodium subsp. vividum should still properly be called Cyclamen repandum var. vividum. I don't think it matters which names are used here, but it would help if people using the latest names, that haven't yet won Kew approval, at least mentioned the more familiar ones at the same time. (I'd prefer that to simply citing the authority for the particular name being used, which would be another way of getting around the difficulty but would probably entail too much reference-checking for most of us. And on this forum at least one member took the authority name to be a cultivar name  ;))
Another thing that would be really helpful would be a list of the various recent and less familiar names, with a translation beside them of their more generally known Plant List names. The list should include the rhodiums, of course, plus crassifolium, confusum etc. Would you like to do that for us, Jo?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on October 24, 2011, 01:46:57 PM
Think there should be no discussion about the name of this cyclamen: Cyclamen graecum ssp. anatolicum
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 24, 2011, 02:41:57 PM
I find those graecum subspecies very difficult. Though each of the subspecies has clear characteristics, the species as a whole is so variable that I think the defining features of the various subspecies may just be the extremes of a clinal distribution of those features. But i guess that's an old argument....
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 24, 2011, 02:44:08 PM
Well that sounds like a task for a rainy day, amber flood alert in Devon isn't wet enough to keep me in :-\

If anyone would like to check the list its here  http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/search?q=cyclamen

And does anyone have photos of the following accepted species ?

Cyclamen abchasicum,     used to be C coum 'Abchasicum'

Cyclamen adzharicum

Cyclamen circassicum

The second two I don't know but would love seed  :o :o
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 24, 2011, 07:58:02 PM
Hans that is a beauty, mine are realy amazing this seoson with lots of flowers.

Here are a couple of photos i took last week in North Cyprus where this subsp is growing only in two locations in the extreme NW part of the island.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 24, 2011, 08:08:10 PM
Lovely pictures Oron,  I love the dumpy petals on the close up.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 24, 2011, 08:30:07 PM
Thanks Jo,
By the way i grow one plant for quite  a few years now that is named coum abchasicum but i do not see any difference from any other coum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 24, 2011, 10:13:55 PM
Here's a pic of my Cyclamen coum 'Abchasicum', just coming into leaf.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 24, 2011, 10:23:55 PM
And here is an ordinary coum with similar but much more silver leaves.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 25, 2011, 07:12:18 AM
Lovely pictures of beautiful plants, Jo, Oron and Hans!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 25, 2011, 11:28:37 AM
Picked yesterday afternoon in the olive orchard. I concentrated on deep pink which doesn't show to advantage in the photo. Today maybe I'll pick a bunch of light pink to show the contrast.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 25, 2011, 04:21:48 PM
Here it is. (I know this isn't botanically interesting, but I love all the different shades).  This year I haven't seen any pure whites yet, not even in places where I'd seen them before.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 25, 2011, 05:42:22 PM
Lovely, Cali: I can almost smell them!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 26, 2011, 01:06:44 PM
Wow Cali,  I'm so jealous.  You have so many flowers you can pick great big bunches like that. If I did that I'd have no flowers left in the garden or alpine house at this time of year   :).   My hederifoliums and graecums are mostly over   :(.  

The leaves still look good though   :) :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 26, 2011, 02:17:42 PM
I'm lucky. The olive orchards surrounding my house here in Corfu are carpetted in pink.(Some of you might remember that from when we held the AGM here.) They get regularly trampled on just because there's often no room to put your foot down. Instead, I fill little vases around the house, often (as in this case) picking a particular shade just to make the picking more interesting and less mechanical. Once I was especially picky and had four different shades from four successive days.
Mine are graecums too, unless somebody convinces me otherwise... ahem! No leaves yet. They'll start in November.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 26, 2011, 03:02:30 PM
Jo, with leaves like yours, who needs flowers!
I've never seen Cali's leaves, but I think (and I know I haven't convinced you, Cali  ;)) that her lovely plants are in the confusum/crassifolium complex rather than graecum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 26, 2011, 03:08:49 PM
Far be it from me to doubt your expertise, Alisdair.... it's just that the little I've read about confusum doesn't fit too well with what I see. Actually, what I think is that we're probably talking about mixtures or self-made hybrids that fit and don't fit many descriptions. I've been seeing too many of them for too many years and refrain from accepting any labels till you get here.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 26, 2011, 07:34:59 PM
My thoughts were the same as Alisdairs when I saw the flowers and didn't think they were C. graecum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Miriam on October 26, 2011, 10:13:04 PM
Nice findings Oron!

Here is Cyclamen rohlfsianum flowering with two shades of pink.
I don't think the Libyans are concerned with their Cyclamens at this moment  ::) ;D
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 27, 2011, 06:34:09 AM
I've been saying "Graecum" despite discrepancies (notably greater size which I attribute to our humidity) because I find the other suggestions present more discrepancies. I would welcome an identification. Since Graecum seems to be unpopular, l'll withdraw it.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Melvyn on October 27, 2011, 11:50:57 AM
Thank you Cali for showing the bunches of cyclamen flowers, as Alisdair said you can almost smell the perfume just looking at them.
As far as I am aware Cyclamen graecum has not been found on Corfu. It was not encountered on the Cyclamen Society field study in 2008 and I have not found it, or any spring flowering species, on a number of private visits.
I have included three photos showing the range of flower colours to be found on the island all of which I imagine you are familiar with.They are all C.hederifolium.
C. confusum does not grow on Corfu, as far as we know, and has so far only been identified from the west of Crete. As to whether the Corfu plants include ssp. crassifolium I think it probably does but that is the subject of continuing research. The Cyclamen Society have so far studied plants in the Ionian Islands of Zakinthos, Corfu and Kythera, next month field studies will be undertaken in Kefalonia. Hopefully we will soon know a little more about C.hederifolium ssp crassifolium
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 27, 2011, 11:59:48 AM
Thank you, Melvyn and all. So, for the time being we will stick with plain hederifolium.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 27, 2011, 03:17:33 PM
What an incredible colour Melvyn's last plant is!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on October 27, 2011, 03:29:16 PM
I see quite a few dark ones like that.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on October 29, 2011, 05:44:04 PM
I haven't done much with C. rohlfsianum especially as they don't usually set much seed. This is one of the few seedlings that I have selected and grown on with an almost silver leaf.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on November 02, 2011, 10:21:13 AM
A beauty in bloom today for the first time.
Recived as seeds from John Fielding back in 2006 as confusum 'Dark Form'.
At the moment it is the darkest and rediest in my entire collection!!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on November 02, 2011, 10:25:09 AM
Wow, what an amazing colour Oron!
Clearing up my desk just now (long overdue) I found a little note that in February in the Peloponnese this year I found a bulldozed Cyclamen graecum tuber which - before I rehomed it - I measured and weighed.
It was just over 200 mm across, and (despite being virtually rootless) weighed 1.714 kg.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Cali on November 02, 2011, 10:58:37 AM
Hmmm.... maybe some of the Corfu ones are confusum after all (sheepish grin).
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on November 02, 2011, 12:28:08 PM
What a fabulous colour Oron.  Is it flowering a little later than in the wild or does confusum normally flower later ?

Alisdair, it sounds like you had a pumpkin, not a graecum  ;D ;D
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on November 02, 2011, 07:57:23 PM
Hee hee Jo!
In the Peloponnese there are colonies of the confusum/crassifolium type of hederifolium which are normally still in flower in January.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 02, 2011, 08:34:56 PM
Oron, well it was worth sending you a bit of seed then, darker than the original, mine!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 02, 2011, 09:16:53 PM
Here's a healthy C. rohlfsianum which I have just repotted. It is 10 years old and hadn't come into growth yet. My hand for scale. Note how nobbly this species gets. In old age this progresses into a splitting of the tuber which I have also seen in C. purpurascens.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on November 03, 2011, 11:53:29 AM
Beautiful patterned C. rohlfsianum, John - hope will find one similar among my seedlings.

Oron - this colour is really fantastic!

Most C. rohlfsianum are over now and start to show their beautiful leaves, while C. cilicium and C. hederifolium are in full flower.
Title: Re: Cyclamen persicum autumn-flowering
Post by: Alisdair on November 12, 2011, 03:44:57 PM
For Ori's photo of the autumn-flowering Cyclamen persicum among other mouth-watering bulbs in bloom at the moment in Israel, after rains,click here (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=539).
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: cycnich on November 13, 2011, 03:36:53 PM
A few leaves of Cyclamen Hederifolium from my garden today.

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: cycnich on November 18, 2011, 04:34:29 PM
A few graecum leaves from my garden today. The first and second rows are ssp candicum, the third and fourth are spp anatolicum and the bottom is spp graecum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: cycnich on November 18, 2011, 04:35:45 PM
The last few hederifolium flowers of Autumn.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 18, 2011, 11:43:53 PM
It is amazing the range there is now in Cyclamen. Here's a picture I took this morning of Cyclamen persicum autumn flowering ex. Duma. It has more flowers coming and seems better than it has for many years. Maybe it's the Indian summer we still seem to be having. The weather is fairly miserable but we were around 15ºC today!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 20, 2011, 11:28:02 PM
I mentioned about buying some dark flowered hederifolium form our local garden centre and one had particularly silver leaves. This season I sowed all of the seed from this one plant and to my surprise all of them are coming up with a silver leaf. Most unexpected as they will have outcrossed! So in this case the silver marking is presumably a dominant gene!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on November 21, 2011, 07:25:54 AM
Fascinating, John!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 26, 2011, 12:11:33 AM
This is a specimen of Cyclamen mirabile 'Tilebarn Anne'. They don't always perform this well for me!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 26, 2011, 12:14:08 AM
And here's a typically pale pink C. rohlfsianum. This species does seem to flower better for me if I keep it dry until it comes into flower.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on December 03, 2011, 06:04:00 PM
Clearing up my desk just now (long overdue) I found a little note that in February in the Peloponnese this year I found a bulldozed Cyclamen graecum tuber which - before I rehomed it - I measured and weighed.
It was just over 200 mm across, and (despite being virtually rootless) weighed 1.714 kg.
This picture taken last week shows that the poor rootless orphan described above seems to be enjoying its new home  :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: cycnich on December 04, 2011, 02:53:36 PM
Lovely to see it doing so well, it was well worth saving, it really has a will to live.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on December 04, 2011, 04:34:39 PM
Thanks, Pat: yes, Helena and I were thrilled to see it peeping out from under a Salvia fruticosa.
Title: Difference between graecum, hederifolium and persicum
Post by: Sandra on December 08, 2011, 03:45:23 PM
These are all amazing pictures and fascinating tales of cyclamen but for the less well informed amongst us can someone please  explain (in simple English) how I tell the difference between Cyclamen graecum, hederifolium and persicum for starters?
Title: Re: Difference between graecum, hederifolium and persicum
Post by: John on January 09, 2012, 12:18:21 AM
Hi Sandra, I have to say that I don't even think about it any more I assume that I know with a glance! Having said that I can admit to occasionally confusing some leaf forms of C. persicum with C. graecum especially when not in flower.
C. persicum is usually quite distinct in that it flowers generally in the spring period though there are a few populations that are autumn flowering.
Both C. graecum and C. hederifolium are generally autumn flowering (though there are apparently some later flowering forms which I believe are quite unusual). Their leaves are very variable and to generalise about them would be difficult as they can look quite similar. The flowers also are quite similar which doesn't help at all.
Perhaps while I have a think about it someone else will comment further!
Title: Re: Difference between graecum, hederifolium and persicum
Post by: Alisdair on January 09, 2012, 09:22:11 AM
Sandra, Around where you are based in Greece the simplest way of telling these apart is where you find them.
For starters, you won't find Cyclamen persicum growing wild in mainland Greece. (Very occasionally you may come across it in ancient graveyards, descended from ones people have planted there in the past.) And as John says the wild ones flower in spring (except for some populations in Israel), but the other two species flower in autumn.
The plant which flowers abundantly on the hillsides around and above your Greek house, normally either in open ground or in dry phrygana, is Cyclamen graecum.
By contrast, Cyclamen hederifolium tends to grow in more shaded, rather damper or wooded places - little sheltered valleys etc; for instance, in your area it's common around Milia and Castania.
As John says, once you have seen quite a few plants, you can tell them apart at a glance, though it is quite difficult to put the differences into words. Until the leaves have got really weathered, the leaves of Cyclamen graecum often tend to have a rather velvety look, as opposed to the smoother and glossier look of C. hederifolium. Cyclamen hederifolium leaves can get quite a lot bigger than those of C. graecum - sometimes as big as your hand or even larger; even just finger-length would be pretty big for C. graecum.
Looking at the pictures in this thread, comparing C. graecum and C. hederifolium leaf patterns, should help too.
I have to say that it is really difficult to tell the flowers of these two species apart, but around your area, at least up to 500 metres or so, you have the bonus that the populations of C. hederifolium are often gently scented, whereas C. graecum never is.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on January 09, 2012, 11:25:54 AM
Sandra, I found the description of the flowers of these two autumn flowering cyclamens in C. Grey-Wilson's Wild Flowers of the MediterraneanC. hederifolium: 'Flowers pink with a purple -magenta V-shaped blotch at the base of each lobe'. and C. graecum: 'Flowers ... with 3 fine magenta streaks at the base of each lobe, the outer streaks V-shaped, the central one unbranched. Lafranchis & Sfikas (in Flowers of Greece) say about C. hederifolium '...petals with two short stripes on the outside', and C. graecum: 'Petals with long featherings (= stripes) outside'. I found this very useful when I was trying to identify the cyclamens in my region (Halkidiki, I have only seen C. hederifolium there), and I have attached two photos showing the differences, the last one was from Crete.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on January 09, 2012, 09:21:12 PM
The autumn flowering C. persicum is possibly quite widespread in the Lebanon as well.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on January 10, 2012, 10:15:26 AM
Good point, John!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on January 22, 2012, 12:56:15 PM
I'm off to the Cevennes in March,  hopefully to photograph C balearicum.  Anyone got any good places I should look ?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on January 23, 2012, 11:36:48 AM
As C. balearicum can't be that common in the Cevennes, I'd suggest that anyone who does know of likely sites emails Jo privately. Giving locations openly here on the forum would be too helpful to the dreaded plant-diggers!
Hope you do find some, Jo - and hope to see some photos here.
Yesterday Helena and I went further down the Mani, to the site of some very late-flowering C. hederifolium (the sort that has recently been called crassifolium) - will post a photo when I get back to UK in Feb.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: ezeiza on January 25, 2012, 04:42:41 AM
"emails Jo privately. Giving locations openly here on the forum would be too helpful to the dreaded plant-diggers!"

Wow! I love this fabulous forum more and more every time! To think that in other web forums intendedly minimize the subject of poaching. Not to mention when they evidently take sides explaining the virtues of "plant introduction" by scrupleless merchants.
Title: Late-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium in Mani
Post by: Alisdair on February 04, 2012, 04:41:50 PM
This picture was taken of a Cyclamen hederifolium in the very late-flowering population in Mani on the Greek Peloponnese while we were there in late January this year. It was one of the last still to be in full flower, and was going over when we saw it on 1 February. The last to flower in our own garden there lost its final flower right at the end of January.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on February 05, 2012, 11:11:17 AM
Another memory of fast growth in Cyclamen. I potted up a seedling of Cyclamen hederifolium Apollo Series soon after germination and to my surprise it refused to go dormant so I kept potting it on. At the end of twelve months it had filled a pot around 20 cm wide with a complete cover of foliage. This is the only time this has happened though I have had similar experiences with other plants. Lilium formosanum from germinating to flower in 3 months. If only everything was so obliging!
Title: Compost for cyclamen, and feeding
Post by: Alisdair on February 10, 2012, 08:24:45 PM
I have split off John's and Alberto's very interesting comments and advice on compost and feeding, started here, to a new topic which you can see by clicking on its name here, Compost for bulbs (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=682.0).
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on February 19, 2012, 11:22:24 PM
I have just had a question about virus in Cyclamen coum.  A picture of a very unusually marked coum has been posted on the Scottish Rock gdn forum.

Here is the link,  what does anyone else think ?   
 Strange plant here : http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8335.msg232815#msg232815
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on February 19, 2012, 11:48:26 PM
Hi Jo, interesting and I would say that it is not probably virused and it also looks like the type of variegation that will come true from seed.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on February 20, 2012, 12:15:04 AM
Do you find this type of marking/variegation attractive?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on February 20, 2012, 09:27:19 AM
I will assume from your question that you do not! I find it interesting especially if it comes true from seed which marginal variegation will not. I also suspect that it would be a hit in Japan where variegation is, I believe, quite popular.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on February 20, 2012, 10:15:28 AM
You are right, John, I find them rather sickly looking and not attractive at all.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 04, 2012, 10:48:45 AM
Here's what happened when Helena put aside a heap of dormant baby Cyclamen hederifolium tubers, covered them with grit to keep them fairly moist until she dealt with them - then more or less forgot about them:
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on March 04, 2012, 11:12:29 AM
You could put that on your door at Christmas!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: anita on March 31, 2012, 04:18:19 AM
I've never been to Southern Europe and what I know of Cyclamen growing in the wild I've gleaned from books such as John Fielding's Flora of Crete (which has some great in situ pics thanks!). So planting a corm of C. graecum into the garden in Adelaide was a bit of an educated guess. I planted it in full sun, which I'd read was what it needed in English gardening books... for three years it just hung in there not looking too happy. Then I saw John's book...and those plants in situ.. light bulb moment... I shifted the suffering plant to the back garden into dappled sun at the top of a low retaining wall.. next year there were a few more leaves and the plant was definitely happier. This year when the rest of the autumnal bulbs started to move I thought I'd see how little graecum was faring... and to my delight - there was a FLOWER!. Thanks John for the insight... Australia's sun... is different and what might suit sun in the UK is likely to prefer a little dappled shade in Aus, as they seem to in Crete. What's even better is that I was so certain the C. graecum could succeed here that I bought seed two years ago hoping to get more plants... so I've now got three potfuls of seedlings coming on... a few more plants will join this lonely soul next year.
Title: Do pigs ever eat cyclamens - "sow-bread"?
Post by: Alisdair on August 15, 2012, 10:45:07 AM
Do pigs ever really eat cyclamens? There is certainly a long-standing traditiion that they do. In medieval times herbalists writing in Latin called the cyclamen panis porcinus, later translated in the 16th century into German saubrot and English sow-bread. The name continued in fairly common use well into the 19th century, and even today cyclamen enthusiasts like to speculate about the sow-bread name coming from Sicilian wild boars digging up cyclamen tubers to eat, and that sort of thing.
This year we have shared with our neighbours three Oxford Sandy & Black pigs - a classic foraging breed. They live in a small patch of woodland where they do indeed forage enthusiastically. They quickly found and have dug up the mature - even venerable - Cyclamen hederifolium tubers in their area. They play with them happily, but show no signs whatsoever of eating them - see photo below, taken this morning. What is true is that the dug-up de-rooted tubers, left on the ground by the pigs as they go on to find something more tasty, do look very like the small flat loaves of bread which have been baked in country areas since time immemorial.
I now believe that it's extremely unlikely that pigs, wild or just free-roaming, ever do or did eat cyclamens, which do after all contain poisonous alkaloids. I think it much more likely that, seeing or hearing about the dug-up tubers left behind by foraging pigs, those early herbalists gave the plant that sow-bread name because of the tubers' bread shape, and because they assumed that the pigs would have eaten them instead of just turning up their noses at them, as in fact they seem to do!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on August 15, 2012, 11:09:59 AM
Very interesting, Alisdair.
I have always wondered why cyclamen are also known by the not so romantic name of sow-bread.
I will have to keep pigs well away from these gorgeous little plants!
 
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on August 15, 2012, 02:42:56 PM
Perhaps cyclamen tubers smell like truffles to pigs (?)
I understand that truffles are dug up (and devoured given half a chance) by sows only. It is thought this is because truffles produce a chemical almost identical to a male pig pheromone.
Which leads to the question: are your pigs female, Alisdair?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on August 15, 2012, 03:16:33 PM
Two male, one female. They are all equally happy to dig them up, and equally uninterested in eating them. The female, incidentally (the one in the picture) is the most intelligent of the three.  ;)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Joanna Savage on August 15, 2012, 03:56:45 PM
This garden in Toscana was plagued by  devastation by wild boar until a fence was erected to keep them out. However I have observed what goes on outside the fence as they circle the fence and try to dig their way back in. It seems they will try to uproot almost anything and any stone is moved in the hope of finding a succulent morsel beneath it. The only plants which seem to escape are tough grasses and Cyclamen. I was surprised as I had heard that the wild boar loved cyclamen , but that is not the case here.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Marilyn on September 04, 2012, 02:23:18 PM
Very interested to read these accounts of the pigs' behaviour, and thoughts on the origin of the sow-bread name! Do the cyclamen, once uprooted, show signs of stress or delay? Or do they just carry on regardless? Presumably the latter, if they are among the few things thriving beyond Joanna's boundary fence.

I saw masses of Cyclamen purpurascens in flower all over the place during last month's travels in Eastern Europe; I shall post some photos when we have sorted through them. I was reading their profile on the Cyclamen Society website, which can be seen here - http://www.cyclamen.org/purp_set.html - and it correlates exactly with my experience. Especially abundant in beech woods and on limey soils; often highly perfumed; with particularly deep-coloured forms around Lake Bled in Slovenia, which is where we saw them first. Some of the most wonderful colonies were in the woods around the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia; carpets of very variably-coloured flowers, the scent wafting on the morning air and discernable even to my nose, which was at the time afflicted by a stinking cold... :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 04, 2012, 07:58:50 PM
Looking forward to hearing more about your Croatia travels, Marilyn!
Those uprooted cyclamen - depends how brutally they've been uprooted. If they're just sitting on the surface as little rootless "breads", then when their flowering season comes around they bravely try to put out a few flowers (like the poor rootless dried-out wild-dug tubers that one still occasionally finds in garden centres) and may also put out leaves - too early in the season for us to tell yet. If they have some root connection with the soil still, then they behave rather more as normal.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Joanna Savage on September 05, 2012, 06:33:45 AM
I have been able to transfer dormant cyclamen which have been uprooted by the wild boar  successfully to the garden. My neighbours refer to  the bulbs/corms/ whatever they are, as potatoes.

After 30mm of rain last week the first three spontaneous Cyclamen hederifolium flowers have appeared. It is such a rewarding plant , it will provide interest until the leaves die away in about April.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Daisy on September 06, 2012, 08:20:17 AM
I don't have any species cyclamen, but last year I bought some Miracle Cyclamen from the local supermarket.
They flowered all winter and spring and in early summer I planted them out in the garden. I put them in the darkest, shadiest, places under the citrus trees.
They started flowering again a few weeks ago.
Daisy :)

(http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss112/daisyincrete/sept1028.jpg)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on September 06, 2012, 04:14:52 PM
I recently bought these cyclamen, labelled "Mini cyclamen mini wine" from a nursery near London. They are small plants (the size of C. hederifolium) and, I thought, very attractive. Alisdair, you probably know their parentage?
I had to net them, though, as some unknown creature - pigeon, squirrel, fox?- kept digging them up (in our London garden, I may add).
It would be nice to take some tubers to Paros and try them there.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 06, 2012, 07:09:13 PM
I don't know the parentage, but someone else may. They do look to me like one of the hybrids now being produced by Dutch firms such as Schoneveld, some of which are vegetatively propagated instead of being raised from seed.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on September 07, 2012, 10:34:40 PM
Alice

Your Cyclamen is a new cultivar  belonging to series Snowridge F1, named 'Mini Wine', it is grown from seeds and distributed worldwide by Syngenta.
It is said to be more resistent to Botrytis, therefore sutible for growing outside.
Any way being a Cyclamen persicum cultivar it probably would not live long in Paros or any where else, but one can never know, it might be a surprise..
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on September 08, 2012, 12:12:05 AM
Thanks, Oron. I will leave them in their London home and hope they survive.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 09, 2012, 09:24:39 AM
Daisy you do have a cyclamen species as Oron confirms. To date all of the florists cyclamen are Cyclamen persicum.
Though some experiments have been conducted to produce true hybrids using (I believe) embryo rescue I don't think any have been produced commercially.
The weakness of many modern seed strains is that they grow fast with the result that they often don't produce a decent tuber. This obviously suits the growers because you have to buy more next season.
I have an old diploid cultivar I bought about 20 years ago or more which is still thriving with quite a large tuber now.
In your garden they may grow away and establish themselves quite happily from what I have seen of your cultivation.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 10, 2012, 10:21:19 AM
Now I'm off to Italy on Thursday,  south of Naples,  will I be able to find Cyclamen hederifolium to photograph down there ?  Can anyone suggest any good places to visit for other Autumn flowers ?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Daisy on September 10, 2012, 01:41:38 PM
Thank-you John for letting me know about my Miracle Cyclamen.
I thought that they were a hybrid of persicum and something else. ???

When I lived in Surrey, I would plant a whole tray of them along the bottom of my neighbours privet hedge. About three quarters of them would survive each year to flower the following autumn and winter. ;D
Daisy :)

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on September 10, 2012, 05:47:55 PM
Now I'm off to Italy on Thursday,  south of Naples,  will I be able to find Cyclamen hederifolium to photograph down there ?  Can anyone suggest any good places to visit for other Autumn flowers ?

Hi Jo

I think it is a bit early but you might find C. hederifolium on Monte Faito [S. of Napoli], it is a good area, and it raind abundantly a couple of weeks ago. You can find it easily on Google Earth.

Good Luck [ or as the Italian say: 'In bocca al luppo']
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 10, 2012, 07:05:08 PM
I found Cyclamen hederifolium quite common throughout central Italy though from what I have seen generally less interesting in it's variation than in Greece. Still that's the point of looking to see what's interesting isn't it. Cyclamen repandum is also very common even right down to the coast in some places though it is probably too early for the new leaves to be up.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 10, 2012, 10:12:05 PM
Hi Oron and John,  thanks for suggestions.  I'm going to the Cilento National Park area and will be  having a look along the coast and inland as well.  What habitat, elevation, aspect etc do you recommend ?

The hederifoliums are in full flower here in the garden but since it has hardly stopped raining all summer  the poor things are probably completely confused about the season.  They started flowering in July.

I agree John that there may not be any repandums in leaf yet,  how about purpurascens, does it occur that far south ?  I've seen it up round Lake Garda.

Cheers,  Jo  and Oron,  crepi il lupo   ;)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 10, 2012, 10:52:02 PM
C. purpurascens only in the north. The other two widespread other than the north! C. hederifolium and C. repandum most likely in woodland conditions but I expect you will have an eye for the right localities. You might be lucky and find some as I think that the growing season probably starts earlier than in most of Greece.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 26, 2012, 03:43:41 PM
Just came back from a lovely trip to the Cilento National Park, Italy, where unlike here the sun shone and it was beautifully warm.

 We spent one day up in the hills looking for cyclamen. I chose the Gole del Calore as a possible C. hederifolium site,  thanks Oron for the suggestion. What a lovely walk up a steep sided limestone gorge with plenty of cyclamen throughout the woods along the path.

Here are a few of the pictures I took.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 26, 2012, 03:49:02 PM
We parked in a grassy car park with picnic benches where this colchicum was in flower.  Is it C. aggripium ?

Also some more cyclamen.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 26, 2012, 03:53:18 PM
There were plenty of roadside cyclamen on the way up to Felitto. Some quite nice colours too.  There was also a fair bit of fire damage but it was good to see that the cyclamen had survived the heat.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 26, 2012, 07:30:53 PM
Wow, stunning plants! Really elegant, a lot of them, and your candy stripe one is remarkable. Super looking place, too! Did you swim in that tempting pool?
Thanks very much, Jo.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 26, 2012, 08:21:19 PM
How about Colchicum neapolitanum?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on September 26, 2012, 09:46:14 PM
We parked in a grassy car park with picnic benches where this colchicum was in flower.  Is it C. aggripium ?

Jo,

Realy happy that you have found the Cyclamen with some very nice color forms.

Regarding the Colchicum, C. agrippinum is an hybrid that has been in cultivation for many years its origins are not known. It is thought to be a hybrid between C. autumnale  and C. variegatum.
The one you have photographed may be C. neapolitanum as John suggested or C. lusitanum [having a white throat], both present in that area.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on September 26, 2012, 11:11:40 PM
Hi, yes I agree I haven't seen anything that dark in Italy though some variation is inevitable you managed to find it!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 27, 2012, 12:33:02 PM
I'm off to the Cevennes in March,  hopefully to photograph C balearicum.  Anyone got any good places I should look ?

Having posted my Italy pics I see that I didn't post my Cevennes, France, pics of Cyclamen balearicum.  Thanks Melvin for suggestions of where to find them.

They were locally abundant, but the distribution was very specific.  We found them in two separate locations but they decreased as we climbed up hill.

The leaves were quite variable and well marked and there was plenty of self sowing evident.  It was too early for the flowers unfortunately.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 27, 2012, 12:35:03 PM
More pics
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on September 27, 2012, 12:36:41 PM
And a few of the plants there also
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: jo on October 11, 2012, 10:14:47 AM
Wow, stunning plants! Really elegant, a lot of them, and your candy stripe one is remarkable. Super looking place, too! Did you swim in that tempting pool?
Thanks very much, Jo.

I didn't take the plunge but Tom and the others did. It may have looked tempting but it was really freezing  :o .

 I was sent off to take photos at my own speed   :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Daisy on November 09, 2012, 09:03:06 AM
The Miracle cyclamen that I planted last year have seedlings coming up around them.
Are they going  to be like the originals, or different?
Daisy :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 09, 2012, 10:31:43 AM
Hi, I would guess similar as many of the seed strains are diploids and fully fertile. As you don't have any other types then they should be similar.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on November 19, 2012, 10:34:14 AM
Here an actual picture of some cyclamen - the leaves always look fantastic.
Visible on the picture are C. graecum album (front right), C. alpinum (small leaves on the left), C. persicum var autumnale (large leaves in the middle, still with a few flowers) and C. rohlfsianum (background). For comparision, the stalk of G. reginae - olgae emerging in the middle of the Cyclamenleaves has a total height of 38cm.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 19, 2012, 10:46:50 AM
They all look very happy. I envy you being able to grow them outside and out of pots. I think of the flowers (though stunning and quite unique) as being a bonus and it is the leaves that give the best show.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on November 19, 2012, 07:44:41 PM
Fantastic green salad Hans ;)
Thanks for showing it.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 19, 2012, 07:59:32 PM
How rude. And I think it should be said that you should not attempt to eat them as they are (I believe) toxic to humans!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on November 20, 2012, 12:19:31 AM
 ;D ;D ;D - thanks John and Oron, I certainly will not eat them - they are just too nice! ;)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on November 20, 2012, 07:40:54 AM
Well, in this region: Lebanon, Syria and Palestine the leaves of Cyclamen persicum are edible.
They are stuffed with rise, in the same way they would do with Vine leaves.
As there are no Vine leaves available in winter they are  replaced with either leaves of Salvia hierosolymitana, Cyclamen persicum, Arum dioscoridis and Mangold [Beetroot leaves] which is realativaly new option.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on November 20, 2012, 09:38:49 AM
I am surprised though perhaps I shouldn't be as I have eaten some strange and even poisonous plants in Greece. I know that cats must not be allowed to eat Cyclamen, though you may ask why would they, but they are on a list of palnts that are toxic to them along with Lilies. Perhaps cooking is a reason they are edible and not as a salad? I would have also been a bit dubious about Arum leaves but again maybe the cooking? This also moves this inot a different topic but still includes Cyclamen.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on November 20, 2012, 09:36:33 PM
Thanks for the interesting information Oron!
Title: Re: the winter-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium
Post by: Alisdair on January 08, 2013, 04:13:14 PM
I'm in Greece at the moment, in the southern Peloponnese.
Here is a picture (lousy cell phone snapshot, I came without my camera) of the local low-altitude form of Cyclamen hederifolium which flowers in the winter - flowering at the moment in our garden here. Photo taken two days ago, 6 January:
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on January 30, 2013, 11:50:57 PM
 :) Cyclamen hederifolium has begun blooming here. Pink and white but all fairly plain green leaves. The fancy leaved forms will be later. tn
Title: Cyclamen and Caryatids
Post by: Hilary on March 03, 2013, 06:08:24 PM
We saw these cyclamen in the village of Karyes, Lakonias. They were near the modern copies of the Caryatids which are  now in the Acropolis Museum.  I have also posted a photo of the explanatory notice for your further edification. I am sure someone will translate it.
Title: Re: Cyclamen and Caryatids
Post by: Trevor Australis on March 03, 2013, 10:30:20 PM
Cyclamen hederifolium would be my nomination. Did you observe any leaves? If the leaf pattern was indistinct it could be C. hederifolium ssp. confusum which is localised in your area according to Grey-Wilson. My C. hed. and C. africanum are flowering too in South Australia.  :) tn.
Title: Re: Cyclamen and Caryatids
Post by: Alice on March 04, 2013, 02:30:32 AM
Are these cyclamen flowering now, Hilary?

A quick translation:
The monument of the Caryatids  is situated on the ancient acropolis (citadel) of Caryai and is a copy of part of the ancient temple of Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens.
The Caryatids, girls from Caryai, were virgin priestesses who used to dance a devotional dance every year during the Caryateia, the festival in honour of Artemis Caryatis.
Lucian (The Dance, 10) wrote: "The Spartans are considered the best of Greeks, having learnt the Catyatid dance from Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux). They do everything to the accompaniment of music, even fight battles to rhythm and the sound of flute".
Later on girls from other parts of Laconia started taking part in this dance and they also were named Caryatids. The girls of Caryai became renowned for their artistic dancing and their graceful poise, so that all female figures in ancient sculpture were eventually named Caryatids. In architecture such female forms were used instead of columns to support buildings or as decorative features in gateways, facades, cornices, friezes and roofs.

Title: Cyclamen africanum
Post by: Trevor Australis on March 04, 2013, 04:36:55 AM
We have Cyclamen africanum blooming now, a week or so ahead of C. hederifolium and I notice that it has pink and white flowered forms. The tubers were raised from Cyclamen Society seed many years ago and we now have a pleasing colony which is spreading from fallen seed and ants distributing it a little further afield. Is it usual to have two colour forms? And is C. africanum still considered a separate sp. tho' closely allied to C. hederifolium? tn
Title: Re: Cyclamen africanum
Post by: oron peri on March 04, 2013, 06:58:06 AM
Trevor,

Cyclamen africanum is closely related to C. hederifolium but it is a species by its own.
It is a wonderful species for a Mediterranean garden, unlike C. hederifolium it is not hardy therefor sutible for a frost free conditions.
As C. hederifolium, flowers have shades of pink and white and an incredible leaf forms, as you have mentioned it seeds it self freely in good conditions and can leave for many years.
Attached some photos from my collection.
Title: Re: Cyclamen and Caryatids
Post by: oron peri on March 04, 2013, 07:05:28 AM
Cyclamen hederifolium would be my nomination. Did you observe any leaves? If the leaf pattern was indistinct it could be C. hederifolium ssp. confusum which is localised in your area according to Grey-Wilson. My C. hed. and C. africanum are flowering too in South Australia.  :) tn.

It does look like Cyclamen confusum as Trevor suggested, but often it is confused with C. graecum.
C. confusum has been upgraded recently to a species level,  [used to be C. hederifolium subsp confusum].
Another good species for a frost free garden, it is a showy, robust species.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on March 04, 2013, 12:00:57 PM
Alice,
Another wonderful translation.
Do you know I don't think I had ever read the notice?
Thanks,
Hilary
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on March 04, 2013, 12:09:26 PM
Trevor, Oron, Alice
More photos of the cyclamen we saw near the Caryatids in Karyes last October.
There were two clumps. One smothered by pine needles the other smothered by Bermuda Buttercup, Oxalis pes caprae, not a leaf in sight
Hilary
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on March 04, 2013, 04:33:47 PM
Hilary,
It is C. confusum.
By the way there is one leaf if you look carefully down on the right side of the first photo.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Hilary on March 04, 2013, 05:55:59 PM
Thanks Oron,
I found another leaf on the original photo
Hilary
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 05, 2013, 03:56:47 PM
Just to add a little more confusion to Cyclamen confusum: the plants that have recently been separated out as the newly named Cyclamen confusum seem to be confined to western Crete. The fleshy-leaved big-flowered hederifoliums like Hilary's caryatid cyclamens, at low altitudes on the Greek mainland and several of the islands, following DNA work that Alastair Culham did alongside the botanical studies by Martyn Denney and Peter Moore, are now being called Cyclamen hederifolium subsp. crassifolium.
I'm sure arguments will go on and on about these names (which have not yet been accepted by Kew's Plant List, but are accepted by IPNI).  ???
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 07, 2013, 08:26:16 AM
The first Cyclamen hederifolium (white as well as pink) are now out as is the first one of C. graecum
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on April 12, 2013, 05:59:39 AM
Cyclamen hederifolium 'BOWLES APOLLO - is it really a consistent strain? And under what circumstances? I have grown 4 batches of Cyc Soc seed of this and they are all different in leaf and flower size - all are white, and I guess a bit bigger than others of mixed parentage. The differences don't really bother me much but I am curious about the value of keeping the name. Comments Alisdair, Oron, Fermi - anyone?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Daisy on July 04, 2013, 07:18:50 AM
Some of my  Miracle Cyclamen have not stopped flowering.
The group that is under the orange tree flowered all winter, spring and are still flowering now.
Does this mean they won't flower next winter?
Daisy :)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on July 04, 2013, 08:28:16 AM
They may go on flowering valiantly - it'll be really interesting to see if they do! So do let us know.
But almost certainly, even if they do go on flowering non-stop, they won't flower so well as they would have if they'd been allowed to go dormant in the warm weather. I imagine you water the orange tree - so the deep cool shade and the continuing moisture in the ground could be fooling them into thinking that the time to go to sleep (which is when their next season's flower buds would be initiating) hasn't yet come....
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John on July 04, 2013, 08:44:50 AM
Hi Daisy, hope all's well with you.
With these dwarf C. persicum I would normally advise that they are just bedding which is pretty much true in London but with you you may be lucky, you do have the right climate. The other reason most modern seed strains fail to be good long lived perennials is that they have been selected to flower quickly and before they have developed a good tuber so that all the available food goes into flower production. You did say some of them so perhaps others have stopped and are trying to have a natural break?
Your soil is probably quite fertile and if they are to continue flowering perhaps even adding a slow release fertilizer or a high potash liquid feed would help, but I suspect a rest would be better if they are to continue for years to come.
Even if they prove to be short lived bedding they were possibly not too expensive and for their flower power they can easily be replaced for the next season.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on September 12, 2013, 02:13:46 PM
I planted a few Cyclamen rohlfsianum seeds a few weeks ago and two have germinated. Two-three weeks after germinating, the stalks are about 2.5cm tall and they are still carrying their seed cases. Is that normal?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Joanna Savage on September 12, 2013, 04:01:08 PM
The first Cyclamen hederifolium flowers are appearing here in Toscana at 300m. This morning I measured 100 mm of rain. That seems an awful lot for so early in Sept. Still, it is very welcome and the ciclameni love it.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 18, 2013, 09:52:19 AM
Alice, Cyclamen do sometimes keep their seed cases on the emerging cotyledons - nothing to worry about! Lucky you to have rohlfsianum germinating....
Here in south-west France, after a very dry hot summer, the rains have been unusually heavy and persistent for the last week or so (and the wine growers are making very pessimistic noises about the vintage, as it's usually warm and dry this month). So our cyclamen - we have C. graecum and C. hederifolium here - are rushing into flower.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on September 19, 2013, 06:05:27 PM
Thank you, Alisdair.
I now have four seedlings of C. rohlfsianum. Two of them have leaves now and I noticed cute little corms just below the compost surface. The seedlings survived the flight from London to Athens. Next week they will be planted in their permanent home. I am new to growing cyclamen from seed so I am rather excited.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 13, 2013, 05:31:29 PM
My C. rohlfsianum seedlings are still alive. Would it be better if I planted them in an area which will get some irrigation over winter or in their permanent position, under a pine, in which case they will have to depend on rainfall alone? We have not yet had any autumn rains and everything is bone-dry.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on October 17, 2013, 06:29:46 AM
I'd be very cautious about irrigating C. rolfsianum in winter. It is v susceptible to over-watering, esp when it's dormant. Most people I know who grow it in soil add extra gravel, sm stones and coarse sand in an effort to give it a very free draining 'dry' conditions. A covering of pine needles probably won't harm it unless the mulch gets too deep for the leaves and flowers to find the way to open air and light.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: SusanIbiza on October 17, 2013, 11:18:07 AM
Do pine needles make a good mulch generally speaking?  We have a long, very dry summer and unreliable rainfall.  There are thousands of pine trees so an inexhaustible supply of potential mulch is readily available.  Are there any groups of plants which would sulk?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 17, 2013, 12:02:16 PM
I understand that pine needles have an acidifying effect on the soil, so would be good for acid-loving plants.
We also use a few handfulls here and there as our soil is very alkaline.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 17, 2013, 12:05:23 PM
Thanks, Trevor.
I am slightly concerned that since my C. rohlfsianum seedlings are still quite small they wouldn't survive if they dried out.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Umbrian on October 18, 2013, 01:32:47 AM
I suppose over a long period of time the use of pine needles as a thick mulch could affect the PH of the soil. They certainly help to retain moisture very effectively and are very slow to rot down as is evident under my Cedrus deodara where a thick layer of fallen needles has formed over the years the bottom layer of which is black and always moist. When first starting my garden 14 years ago I used to collect them from the small pineta adjoining the approach road to the house, feeling that anything was better than nothing, and did not notice any ill effects. Only the effort of collecting them and transporting them eventually deterred me as it was a tiring uphill journey ::)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 18, 2013, 07:52:18 AM
Pine needles certainly make a splendid environment for cyclamen seedlings. The photo shows Cyclamen coum flowering this last March, and some Cyclamen hederifolium in leaf, in the pine duff below and around a big long-needled Pinus patula. We have never planted cyclamen there, but scattered cyclamen seed heads among the needles. Now every year there are hundreds more seedlings there, which seem to love the needles, and the other rotting-down leaf material trapped by the needles.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 18, 2013, 08:00:09 AM
What a sight, Alisdair!
Do you mean to say there were no cyclamen there before you started scattering seed heads?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on October 18, 2013, 08:21:53 AM
Yup, no cyclamen until we scattered seed.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: SusanIbiza on October 18, 2013, 09:21:11 AM
Thank you very much for that Alice! Carole and Alisdair.  That information is very intersting.  I am learning such a lot from you all.  We are waiting to be connected to a new water supply over the winter months so we can start on upgrading the garden.  Our tap water is nearly as salty as sea water and is heavily calcified.  Everything rusts very quickly here.  If it doesn't rain, nothing gets watered.  Even so nerius oleanders, viburnum tinus and hibiscus sinensis thrive despite open exposure to strong winds off the sea.  They are as tough as old boots and oleanders and hibiscus flower all through the summer.  I am amazed how well they grow in such conditions.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on October 18, 2013, 12:14:27 PM
Not that I believe that we will  ever have such a splendid show of cyclamen like yours, Alisdair, but now I know what we can plant under our pine tree.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on October 18, 2013, 10:24:45 PM
We had a huge Pinus radiata in our garden, now gone, with a deep thatch of pine needles and 'duff' (decomposed needles). We had a pot of Cyc. repandum underneath which dropped its seeds over-board unknown to me. Now the seedlings have spread into a generous colony, not so big as Alisdair's but very pleasing. Looking about we find seedlings in our mown grass 'lawns', in paths and under old camellias. Elsewhere coum and hedrifolium have spread widely and I have planted out seed raised africanum, cyprium, corsicum, libanoticum, pelopponesiacum and pelopps lividum. All seem to be settling quite happily.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 19, 2013, 06:55:24 AM
From my wildflower picking childhood days around Attica (this activity was acceptable then), I remember cyclamen growing in conifer forests. In particular, I remember spotting them under pines, firs (Abies cephalonica) and Pistacia lentiscus. They liked to hide their beauty.
I have so far planted a few corms of C. hederifolium which have spread but nothing like your impressive success, Alisdair! I didn't realise it was as easy as scattering a few seeds and, perhaps, a dose of patience.
And I envy your collection of cyclamen, Trevor.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: oron peri on October 19, 2013, 07:37:13 AM
My C. rohlfsianum seedlings are still alive. Would it be better if I planted them in an area which will get some irrigation over winter or in their permanent position, under a pine, in which case they will have to depend on rainfall alone? We have not yet had any autumn rains and everything is bone-dry.

Alice, to answer your question;
I am growing C. rohlfsianum for many years now, it is a particular species with the shortest growing seoson
it blooms in October without the leaves and will set leaves after the first rain. In mid to late March it will dry out.
The minute leaves start to turn yellow stop watering it otherwise it will rot rapidly. I do not water it from March - October [7 month!].
When i have young seedlings i check them in august to see if tubers are not soften, in that case i give it water only once to keep them alive till november. I sugests you to plant your seedlings out in their third year, after the first rain.
Title: Re: Cyclamen corsicum?
Post by: Alisdair on October 19, 2013, 07:40:53 AM
What is it that you grow as Cyclamen corsicum, Trevor? Is it a form of C. hederifolium - or of C. repandum?
Judging from Oron's expert experience, Alice, it looks as if C. rohlfsianum will prove a perfect cyclamen for your fierce dry climate!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alice on October 19, 2013, 06:54:31 PM
Thanks, Oron, for your expert advice. Your C. rohlfsianum look beautiful.
Unfortunately I will have to leave my seedlings to fend for themselves. As there are four, I was thinking of planting two under a pine and the other two in an area which will get some irrigation but I will keep them well away from the taps.
If they survive the first 2-3 years, they do indeed seem very suited to our climate, Alisdair. I have never seen any wild cyclamen on Paros and I am pleasantly surprised that all the C. hederifolium I have planted as corms are doing well and spreading.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on December 05, 2013, 11:09:14 PM
I saw a strange Cyclamen persicum today at a local garden centre. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down the name of the cultivar while I was there, and the pot was only labelled with Cyclamen. The flowers are flat, the petals were not reflexed at all, and they were nodding, so that you only see the flat backside, unless you bend down and look at the underside. The colour was pale, dusty pink; they were at least 12 cm across. It looks best from above and I don’t know if it is pretty or ugly; I just could not resist the temptation.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on December 06, 2013, 12:55:39 AM
What I grow as C. corsicum looks like C. repandum but is white with no coloured 'nose'. I have had one tuber (CS seed exchange) for around 20 yrs. Only recently has it self-sown a few seedling that have not yet flowered. My recollection is that it's leaves are quite dark green, almost blackish in some parts and not very strongly marked or veined. As I remember, from just a few months back, the leaves are not nearly so strongly indented as most forms of C. repandum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 15, 2014, 02:41:36 PM
Our first Cyclamen graecum is now in flower in the Rock garden,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on March 16, 2014, 08:12:48 AM
Alisdair, Fermi, Oron, Jamus and everyone. Can you clarify please? Do I NOT need to soak the seeds 3 x in warm water before planting cyclamen seed? Can I just sow it directly where I want them to be - having some understanding of the conditions they prefer. Life would be so much simpler if I could avoid the rigmarole some 'authorities' advocate. I do take precautions against seed harvesting ants.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 16, 2014, 07:22:26 PM
Trevor, If you sow the seeds dry you will get plants. But Helena's own experiments confirm that if she soaks the seeds for 24 hours she definitely gets better results. Yes a rigmarole, but she is doing that with over 100,000 seeds hand-sown a year!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on March 17, 2014, 10:03:47 PM
Thanks Alisdair. I'll set up a soakery. It's time to start sowing.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: HansA on March 19, 2014, 11:37:27 AM
Cyclamen persicum is flowering actually in the garden, here a larger one.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 20, 2014, 08:04:36 AM
A lovely plant, Hans! Thanks!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Jamus on March 20, 2014, 10:31:45 PM

Trevor, sorry I didn't notice this call for help until now. I have a nice e-book publishing the results of a huge amount of experimental work into germination of seeds (Seed Germination, Theory and Practice Prof. Norman C. Deno). Here's what it has to say about Cyclamen


Cyclamen (Primulaceae). Germination is hypogeal with first formation of a corm and multiple branching root system followed after an interval of 1-2 m by emergence of a true leaf.
C. neapolitanum had markedly different germination patterns for fresh seed and DS seed. Fresh seed germ. 70-40(25% in 3rd w)-70-40(50% in 5th w) and 40-70- 40-70-40(90% in 4th w). Seed DS at 70 or 40 germ. 70(75% in 11th w)-40(20% in 3rd
w) and 40-70(15% in 12 th w)-40(60% in 12th w)-70.
C. persicum germ. 70(78% in 9-16 w), 70L(none), and 40(25% in 9th w). The seedlings that germ. at 70 were kept at 70, and a true leaf developed (hypogeal
germination) in 1-2 m. The seedlings that germ. at 40 all rotted and no further germination took place on shifting to 70. None germ. in 70L-40-70D. The sample in 70L should have been shifted to 70D after 3 mat 70L to determine whether the 70L had permanently injured the seed. This is one of the few examples found in the present work where light blocks germination. Seed deteriorates on DS.


Temperatures are in Fahrenheit - 70F = 21C, 40F = 4C.
DS = Dry stored seed
w = week
m = month
L = light
D = dark

These germination experiments were done in moist paper towel in plastic bags.

I bet you've already sown the seeds!

Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 22, 2014, 01:52:31 PM
Trevor,
I find the pre-soaking a bit fiddly but have a look at Ian Young's Bulblog on the SRGC website - he uses bottle caps to soak the seeds adding a drop of detergent to break the surface tension - http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2014Feb261393409171BULB_LOG_0914.pdf (http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2014Feb261393409171BULB_LOG_0914.pdf).
I've also seen someone (maybe Ian) adding water to the small plastic packets some Seedexes use for sending out seed and this looks pretty simple.
Back to our garden!
Here's the mid pink Cyclamen graecum now in flower and a pale pink one just starting,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on March 31, 2014, 02:51:56 PM
I have sown a few pots with C. graecum (thanks to Alisdair for giving them to me), the first four around three weeks ago, without soaking, a week later another forur pots with seeds that had been soaked for 24 hours. All the pots were then covered with a dark lid, to keep the light out. The pots with unsoaked seeds have already germinated (a few days ago), now I'm eagerly waiting for the remaining soaked ones to show some signs of life.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on April 05, 2014, 02:59:38 PM
Cyclamen mirabile ex Tilebarn Nicholas
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on April 10, 2014, 09:07:33 AM
The white form of Cyclamen graecum in a raised bed in our garden,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on April 17, 2014, 08:32:48 AM
One of the Cyclamen hederifolium in our front garden, which gets a bit more shade,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on May 17, 2014, 07:37:51 AM
I have soaked my newly arrived seeds from the Cyclamen Soc and from Bravenboers Nursery - days days changing with warm water every day. I've sown them and covered the seeds with a layer of fine gravel. Will this be enough to give them the darkness some experts say is necessary before germination occurs?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: JTh on May 18, 2014, 08:49:18 PM
Here is the result of my soaking/not soaking experiment. The seeds in the first four small pots germinated after around two weeks without any presoaking or treatment with darkness , the batch sown a week later were presoaked for 24 hours, the pots were covered with black pots covered with aluminum foil inside to keep any light out. Exactly when the last ones germinated, I don't know, since I left for Greece before there were any signs of life, but when I came back five days ago, there were some small seedlings, a bit pale, but with proper light, the colour of the leaves became normal almost immediately. The plants are much smaller than the non-soaked ones. I have taken a couple of photos this evening, and it is easy to see that the soaking/darkness treatment was not really impressive, the plants are much smaller. Unfortunately, I was a bit too generous with the first batch of seeds, the pots are really crowded, but in spite of this, the seedlings are bigger and seem very healthy, you can see that the leaves are bigger in the first photo (back row),  in the second photo (bottom), you can also see that they are taller (those in the back) than the soaked ones in front. I had four pots of each category, the results were pretty homogenous within each group. It's not a proper scientific setup, but at least from these observations, there was nothing gained by soaking/darkness.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on May 19, 2014, 12:33:46 AM
Thanks Alisdair. I've got another batch to sow this week. I think I will try soaking with a drop of detergent in each lot and plant without the darkness treatment and see how they go.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on November 04, 2014, 02:37:42 PM
Last week we had a couple of days with heavy downpours. Whether or not this is the cause our Cyclamen cyprium have begun to reappear.
Title: Cyclamen in World War I painting
Post by: Alisdair on November 22, 2014, 03:29:00 PM
Yesterday I went to the moving centenary exhibition of 1914-1918 war paintings at the Imperial War Museum. It included "Irish troops in the Judaean Hills surprised by a Turkish bombardment", by Henry Lamb who like his friend Stanley Spencer served in a front-line medical unit there.
Dotted about in the very large canvas were several cyclamen. After the picture itself shown below, I've blown up three of them - not as sharp or clear as in the original, but all clearly Cyclamen persicum.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Umbrian on November 23, 2014, 12:08:47 PM
I have a friend who is an Art Historian and when we go to exhibitions with her I always make a note of the many different flowers that are often depicted. Many have a special symbolic significance but sometimes I feel the artist must just have been wonderfully observant and in touch with the countryside around him. Come the winter I must look at my notes and continue my research!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on December 17, 2014, 05:56:40 PM
Arrived back from Athens late last night and on wandering out into the garden this morning to see how it had fared during our short absence (apparently we had heavy rain on at least a couple of the days) we found this cyclamen. It looks a little deformed as a leaf and flower are growing out of the same stem. I've tried to take it from different angles to show what I mean. Is this a common occurrence, Alisdair, I don't recall seeing it before?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on December 18, 2014, 07:32:33 AM
 :) I went into our garden today and found the first Cyclamen hederifoliumin bloom, not very precocious - it is ONLY mid-way through the last month of Spring down here!  :-\
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on December 19, 2014, 07:55:39 PM
John, it does happen but very rarely - I've only seen leaf and flower on the same stem once and it never happened again on that plant. Rather more common is fasciation, where you get more than one flower or two conjoined on one stem (there are illustrations of this including one quite amazing plant in the issue of the Cyclamen Soc's journal that I brought you and Fleur to show you the advert for the MGS trips to Cyprus and to Northern Greece that you're organising for 2015).
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on January 22, 2015, 06:58:50 AM
My friend Otto gave me this tuber last year and I was dismayed when it hardly put up any leaf growth before going dormant. However it has surprised me by coming into flower now: Cyclamen rohlfsianum,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on January 23, 2015, 06:35:26 AM
I've grown C rolfsianum for years but never flowered it despite giving it harsh treatment in a very gravelly soil. Good Luck with it Fermi.
Title: Re: Cyclamen rohlfsianum
Post by: Alisdair on February 05, 2015, 01:18:10 PM
Trevor, If your plants are very old it's quite likely that they derived from a small number brought decades ago from Libya by the late Colonel Mars. For a long time all those in cultivation came from those, and through successive generations it seemed a very shy-flowering strain. In the last two or three decades other strains have spread around which have been much more free-flowering.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Joanna Savage on September 19, 2015, 11:45:54 AM
Ciclameni, I think. Alisdair in your lovely photo of MGS autumn garden posted on Facebook today, are those rose coloured flowers Cyclamen? It is a magnificent clump. This garden here has lots of individual C. hederifolium. I would like to try to form such luxurious clumps.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 20, 2015, 10:54:47 AM
In that photo by Vina Michaelides they're Oxalis purpurea, Joanna (I have to downgrade the facebook photos so that the smaller files download reasonably quickly for people using cellphones etc); you'd have probably spotted that they were Oxalis if you'd seen the higher-resolution original. It's actually very rare to see such a deep pink in Cyclamen hederifolium, though you can occasionally find them. We've got one such plant here in the UK so this morning I was very pleased to see a bumblebee busily fertilising it then, with legs covered in golden pollen, going on to its neighbours to fertilise them!
I'm sure your plants will eventually build up into sizeable patches as the ants gradually spread the seeds around.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 03, 2016, 12:30:53 PM
Once again Cyclamen rohlfsianum has bloomed
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 26, 2016, 12:52:32 PM
Our first Cyclamen graecum for the year has flowered
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 25, 2016, 03:45:30 PM
Cyclamen graecum is still flowering a month later.
Cyclamen hederifolium is in bloom in white and pink,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on April 24, 2016, 10:12:39 AM
The white form of Cyclamen graecum in a raised bed in our garden,
cheers
fermi
Two years later the white Cyclamen graecum is looking even better
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on December 29, 2017, 06:08:18 PM
The leaves of this cyclamen appeared in our garden recently and the flower opened yesterday. I don't recall ever having seen it before. Alisdair, would I be right in thinking it's a form of Cyclamen coum? Maybe even one from a batch of seeds that you gave us some years ago?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on December 30, 2017, 08:36:14 AM
Absolutely right, John, it's a white-flowered form (and looks as if the unpatterned leaves have a bit of a silvery sheen, which is quite unusual so probably does come from the seed you had from Helena and me)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 21, 2018, 02:09:19 PM
We grow Cyclamen mirabile in the shade-house and it is flowering now.
These were raised from AGS Seedex seeds as "ex Tilebarn Nicholas" and there is a little variation among the seedlings.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 22, 2018, 08:28:18 AM
They are very like / identical to the original 'Tilebarn Nicholas', named by the raiser our dear friend the late Peter Moore, for his son Nick.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 29, 2018, 03:09:30 PM
Hi Alisdair,
Wow, that's amazing that you knew the raiser of this cyclamen.
Because named varieties are seed strains rather than vegetative clones there is usually some variation but I believe that seedlings that don't conform to the description are usually "rougued out" .
I actually must look up the "correct" description of 'Tilebarn Nicholas' though I know it should have pink tinged foliage as it emerges.
In this pic you can see that one seedling has much more pink
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on March 30, 2018, 07:58:16 AM
Lovely to see them getting on with growing up, so happily!
Peter Moore was a lovely man, and probably did more than anyone else ever has to spread around good forms of cyclamen species to cyclamen enthusiasts.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on April 21, 2018, 03:26:27 PM
The white Cyclamen graecum in our raised bed flowered well and now the foliage is starting to emerge while there are still some flowers out,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on July 09, 2018, 12:55:21 PM
This Cyclamen coum came from a friend who died recently. She'd raised it from seed in 2005 from "CSE" which I presume is an acronym for a Cyclamen Society Expedition - perhaps Alisdair knows?
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on July 10, 2018, 07:14:59 AM
Very nice, Fermi! Yes it does stand for that (but now political correctness makes the Society call them "field trips"). If you know the CSE number I can tell you exactly where it came from - today my wife Helena is hosting a meeting here (I'm the dogsbody coffee boy) of the Cyc Soc's publications committee and Martyn Denney who keeps the field trip notes will be here.
(The Society has done several dozen of these information-recording trips over the years now: in a way my little legacy, as I started them when I was its chairman all those years ago....)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on July 24, 2018, 01:26:11 PM
Hi Alisdair,
sadly that's all the info on the label.
Here's a Cyclamen elegans which we got from a friend - she grew it from seed collected in Iran by Jim Archibald
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on July 25, 2018, 07:47:24 AM
Very nice, Fermi! Of course our own cyclamen are completely dormant at the moment. We're having quite a heatwave here in England, temperatures up into the 30s, and this is the time of year when my wife Helena is digging up and separating the Cyclamen coum and hederifolium to send out to her customers - a few thousand each week, for these few weeks. She has a small business selling just these two species, grown from seed, wholesale to bulb firms and a few big landscape gardens. Hot work in this heat!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Trevor Australis on July 30, 2018, 04:05:42 AM
 ;D Well, I got fresh seeds from Oron Peri this year and I believe they are from more floriferous cvs ih his garden of peace. I've sown them and hope to see results soon.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on September 08, 2018, 02:39:09 PM
In 2005 I got seed from the AGS Seedex of Cyclamen persicum "ex Israel" and grew a few pink flowered plants which I kept in our shade-house. I gave one to my friend Otto who planted it in the garden at the Ferny Creek Horticultural Society's Hall. Encouraged by how well it did I tried a few of ours in the garden here but they aren't doing as well.
The first pic is of our cyclamen in our garden - the first flower opening this year.
The second is the one Otto planted - it's doing a bit better!
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Umbrian on September 09, 2018, 06:52:07 AM
Amazing difference Fermi but actually you can take conslolation from the fact that you can see the beauty of the flower far better in the photograph from your garden than in that of your friend.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Charithea on September 09, 2018, 09:17:14 AM
Beautiful.  I am waiting for our to start  flowering.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on March 11, 2019, 11:00:36 AM
A few Cyclamen graecum are now in flower.
The first is in a pot in the shade-house and the second is in a rock garden between two rocks
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on July 16, 2019, 10:31:24 AM
I've been neglecting the forum so this pic is from back in April:
Cyclamen rohlfsianum,
The best flowering so far!
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on July 27, 2019, 10:26:31 AM
We got this Cyclamen cyprium last year and this is it's first flower
Someone on the SRGC Forum says this is not C. cyprium!
More likely to be C. elegans
cheers
fermi
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on July 28, 2019, 09:54:48 AM
C. elegans has always been something of a mystery to me, Fermi! Plants from its recorded range south of the Caspian Sea that I've seen at Peter Moore's had altogether much longer-petalled and truly elegant flowers, and less circular more heart-shaped leaves than C. coum. (But looking at your photo again, that dark blotch at the base of the petal does have the shape that's said to be characteristic of elegans - certainly a far cry from C. cyprium!)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on July 29, 2019, 04:55:46 AM
Fermi, I would agree that it is not Cyclamen cyprium.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on September 13, 2019, 10:28:11 AM
Cyclamen persicum looking like they have settled in
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on September 14, 2019, 09:44:27 AM
They look really happy with you, Fermi!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on January 10, 2020, 07:13:24 AM
The first of our cyclamen to flower this year is this one with the plain green leaves, probably a variety of Cyclamen coum obtained as seeds from Alisdair. Something has obviously been attacking the leaves.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on January 10, 2020, 09:29:47 AM
John, the seed actually came from Helena - "A nice one" she said when I showed her the photo (and she thinks probably a tiny slug or snail had those meals)
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 23, 2020, 07:14:19 AM
The first for the year is Cyclamen graecum in the rock garden,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: David Dickinson on February 23, 2020, 11:53:46 AM
While I was in the UK over Christmas I saw this cyclamen plant in with hundreds of other more typical looking cyclamens. It was labelled as Cyclamen hederifolium. Trying to find which variety on the internet, I came across 'Silver Cloud' but all the photos of that show a more pointed leaf. I have no idea of the flower colour yet and it may not flower at all this year given that the corm is little bigger than a pea. Amazing how a corm that size can produce such big leaves
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: David Dickinson on February 24, 2020, 12:47:48 AM
I have a Cyclamen coum a metre or less away from a Cyclamen hederifolium. The C coum has been nibbled but the C hederifolium hasn't, apart from one leaf, which has 3 tiny holes. I think I would go for the C coum if I were a snail. It looks much tastier than the C hederifolium, wouldn't you agree?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 25, 2020, 01:10:25 PM
Another cyclamen in flower today (I'm sure there were no flowers open yesterday!); this Cyclamen rohlfsianum is a couple of weeks ahead of last year
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on February 26, 2020, 09:05:38 AM
The unusually short petals makes them seem even more pointed - a very pretty effect!
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 27, 2020, 11:23:41 AM
The unusually short petals makes them seem even more pointed - a very pretty effect!
Hi Alisdair,
I haven't grown any other Cyclamen rohlfsianum so didn't realise its petals were particularly short!
Here's the white form of Cyclamen graecum
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Alisdair on February 28, 2020, 09:25:45 AM
What's that you've got your Cyclamen graecum growing through, Fermi?
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: David Dickinson on February 28, 2020, 11:19:55 AM
Hi Alisdair

It looks like a plant I have experimented with a couple of times, Dymondia margaretae. I'm not sure why it hasn't taken for me. Maybe because the plants weren't able to settle in before the heat of summer? Or maybe I watered them too much? I might try again as it is sometimes available at plant fairs here in Italy.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on February 29, 2020, 01:15:57 PM
David is correct. It's a plant which we have in a couple of places as it does well in our conditions. It's quite a dense ground-cover but allows some bulbs to come through,
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: John J on October 26, 2020, 01:35:29 PM
Excuse the poor quality photo but this is our first Cyclamen cyprium of the season. Note the distinct 'M' at the base of the petals.
Title: Re: Cyclamen
Post by: Fermi on August 30, 2021, 06:57:05 AM
Cyclamen persicum looking like they have settled in
Two years on the Cyclamen persicum are still doing well in a couple of places in the garden under deciduous trees       
cheers
fermi