On 27 Jan 2003 09:07:49 GMT, (Nick Maclaren)
wrote:

In article ,
Rodger Whitlock wrote:

Cyclamen coum seems to like:

a. shaded from hot summer sun.
b. not sitting in water during the winter.
c. very humus-y soil.
d. reasonable quantities of lime.
e. not baked totally dry in summer.

Well, in the position I have them at present, conditions (d) and (e)
fail spectacularly!

From what I understand of where they come from, several species
(probably including C. coum) are adapted to very poor soils and
near-waterless summers. I think that the reason they like a lot
of humus in the UK is for the drainage - with me, they get sand and
like it!

Certainly, they estivate quite happily and, if I recall, they are
fairly common in Crete - where it gets pretty dry in the summer
by UK standards.

Cyclamen coum on Crete? raises eyebrows Not that I disbelieve
you but I am surprised to read this. AFAIK, the locus classicus
for C. coum is the Black Sea coast of Turkey, where they grow,
typically, in among the hazel trees. A "mesic woodland" is
probably not a bad description.

One thing about the genus Cyclamen is that there are two groups
of species differentiated by their ecological preferences. One
group is truly Mediterranean in its tastes, enjoying rather warm,
dry summers and fair amounts of light. Cyclamen graecum is a good
representative of this group. The other group prefers somewhat
shadier, moister conditions. Cyclamen are not absolute
bolshevists about insisting on their ecological preference, being
highly adaptable, but for best results it would seem that the
more closely you can approximate their natural preference, the
better they will do.

The Cyclamen Society's latest bulletin has an article in it about
C. pseudibericum, which one of their Turkish expeditions examined
closely in the wild. They conclude that this species prefer the
moister conditions: it was found on north slopes, in deep cracks
in limestone pavements, and other sites that provided just a
little extra coolth and moisture.

I sometimes wonder if the critical aspect of this ecological
preference relates to the survival of seedling tubers. I have a
great many C. hederifolium in my garden, under pine trees where
they get almost no summer water, and most unusually for such a
strong growing species, they do *not* self sow. I suspect the
summer conditions are just too dry and the young seedlings wither
and die.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada