Cyclamen coum ssp. coum or ssp. caucasicum

[johnw]

To which subspecies would you ascribe the attached coum?

The Cyclamen Society website has me thoroughly confused on the hardiness & descriptions of both ssp.  Look here:   http://www.cyclamen.org/spec_frame.htm - which leads to other pages.....

They state ssp. caucasicum is the higher altitude ssp. and yet say ssp. coum "In the USA it has flourished in a zone 4 area of New York State, surviving a prolonged temperature of -28ºC (-19ºF). Sub-species caucasicum is less resistant to extreme temperatures."  QWould a ssp. that ventures into Lebanoin and Isarael not be more tender than one from the Caucasus?  I believe that garden in NY State is in the snow belt and so counts for little, I have tried seed from that source here and have lost it at 0F. 

The plant pictured has been around here at least 5 years or more, even seedlings survive.  But which ssp. is it?

johnw

[Alan_b]

I can neither see a picture nor get your link to work, John,

[Maggi Young]

I expect
John will return with the photo later -  The link to the cyclamen society pages can be simplified, as per my edit to John's post, to just the one link : http://www.cyclamen.org/spec_frame.htm - the further links one can access from there all have the same url.

[johnw]

Sorry about that, late night posting has its hazards.

Forumists have recommended ssp. caucasicum as being the hardiest and yet the CS refutes that.  And fimbriated petals are mention for Israeli coums!

johnw

[Afloden]

John,
 
While I don't see a picture I can say that ssp coum has never survived for me for too long. It has handled cold quite well, but the summers in Kansas (100 F, regularly) and here in Tennessee (90+ F occasionally) kill it every time. On the other hand all the coum I've grown under the various adzharicum and others (=ssp caucasicum) grow slowly, but quite well here in Tennessee. They seem to have better tolerance to heat and seem fine with the cold too. I also find them more attractive, but there are better species out there! Purpurascens is the only species I wouldn't be without.

 Aaron

[Afloden]

Looks more caucasicum to me.

[johnw]

Aaron - Thanks, the photos are there now.   I should have been more methodical and recorded the kinds of coums I have lost over many years.  I will duck out to the greenhouse as I believe coum ("adzharicum ex Pilous") is in flower now making it the earliest of the coums under glass.  Untried outdoors as no idea which ssp. it is.

Summer heat is not a factor here so I have to wonder which ssp. is the hardiest in the UK though real cold is not an issue for most of it, not the normal kidney leaf and rather plain.


john

[David Nicholson]

John, quote from Grey-Wilson (Batsford 2002) under the sub-heading Cyclamen coum ssp. caucasiacum

"......In the caucuses a medley of different forms exist sometimes side by side but also as discreet colonies and botanists working in the region have described many species in the complex, though few would uphold these today as distinct elements, the synonyms include abschasicum, adzharicum, caucasiacum, cicassicum, ibericum and vernum....."

As a lumper myself that would do for me but I don't know if things have changed since 2002.

 

[johnw]

Lumping is fine David until one has to find a hardy form then it's back to splitting-hairs, more so of course when growing undocumented garden seed with no idea of its origins or what it might possibly be crossed with from the neighbour's Tesco bargain bag.

johnw

[johnstephen29]

Hi John I grow coum and also ssp caucasiacum, coum grows very well and survives really low temperatures. I have never tried caucasiacum outside yet, at the moment I am building up my stock of plants to try them outside. You mention the NY garden being in a snowbelt, snow is a great insulator, it will protect plants from the worse of the weather where other plants subject to heavy frosts can get severely damaged or killed. Do you get much snow in nova scotia?

[SJW]

Aaron - Thanks, the photos are there now.   I should have been more methodical and recorded the kinds of coums I have lost over many years.  I will duck out to the greenhouse as I believe coum ("adzharicum ex Pilous") is in flower now making it the earliest of the coums under glass.  Untried outdoors as no idea which ssp. it is.

Summer heat is not a factor here so I have to wonder which ssp. is the hardiest in the UK though real cold is not an issue for most of it, not the normal kidney leaf and rather plain.
john

As it happens, the Cyclamen Society journal dropped through the letterbox today and under Research News there's the welcome information that the Society is starting a taxonomic study of C. coum to

try and harmonise the separation into species (C. abchasicum, C. adzharicum, C. circassicum, C. coum, C. kuznetsovii and C. vernum) usually adopted in Russia and eastern European countries, with the single species referred to in the west. This will be done through morphological observations in the field and DNA analysis of collected samples in the laboratory. Phase one of this project will see a team visiting Georgia in spring 2015 to look at the species there.

So, in a year or so there should be some clarification which is good news. There's some really interesting articles in the latest journal which I'll comment on in another post.

John - your coum ex Pilous looks like what, at present, I'd call ssp caucasicum.

[johnw]

You mention the NY garden being in a snowbelt, snow is a great insulator, it will protect plants from the worse of the weather where other plants subject to heavy frosts can get severely damaged or killed. Do you get much snow in nova scotia?

I certainly agree about snow as an insulator and this is why I believe the results from that NY garden counts for little.  We get plenty of snow here but it comes and goes and cannot be relied upon for long termprotection throughout the winter.  Although this has been a very mild autumn we have already had a low of -8c one night, that would be a nasty night in Cornwall and it make for a balmy day or night here in another 6 weeks! Winter's last few weeks in March can be the real killer here on the coast - blazing sun, below freezing by day or not, low humidity and wind, IF all those factors are combined with deeply frozen ground.

johnw

[johnw]

Steve  - That is good news, thanks for the report.   The CS Journal hasn't arrived yet.

I had great hopes for kuznetzovii as it had been touted as the super hardy one but Janis disagrees.  He said he lost it and his climate would give it a very good test, if it had survived there then it would surely fly here if, that is, it could tolerate our spring & autumn wetness.

Many times I have asked about the old fashioned screeching magenta coum of the 70's that seems to have vanished from gardens.  Sure I have slides of it from back then,  London and south.  One nursery sold it in the USA as C. orbiculatum I think?

johnw

[SJW]

I had great hopes for kuznetzovii as it had been touted as the super hardy one but Janis disagrees.  He said he lost it and his climate would give it a very good test, if it had survived there then it would surely fly here if, that is, it could tolerate our spring & autumn wetness.

John - Concerning the hardiness of C. coum, I think your point about the degree of wetness is also a major factor in whether the plants will survive or not. I think we can get lulled into thinking they must be really hardy because these forms come from eastern Europe. From the CS website: Cyclamen coum is found in the mountains and coastal areas that border the southern and eastern Black Sea coasts from Bulgaria in the west through Georgia and the Crimea in the east. There must be climatic differences between these areas so I think we'd need to know where exactly C. coum kuznetsovii, for example, was originally collected. To illustrate what I mean, this was what one online source has to say about the climate in the Black Sea region:

A steppe climate, with cold winters and hot, dry summers, is found in the northwestern part of the basin exposed to the influence of air masses from the north. The southeastern portion of the sea, sheltered by high mountains, experiences a humid subtropical climate, with abundant precipitation, warm winters, and humid summers. In winter, spurs of the Siberian anticyclone (a clear, dry, high-pressure air mass) create a strong current of cold air, and the northwestern Black Sea cools down considerably, with regular ice formation. The winter invasion of polar continental air (which prevails for an average of 185 days annually) is accompanied by strong northeasterly winds, a rapid temperature drop, and frequent precipitation, with the air becoming warm and moist after passing over the milder eastern portions of the sea. Tropical air from the Mediterranean regions (87 days affected on average) is always warm and moist. Occasionally, winds from the Atlantic via eastern Europe bring rain and sharp squalls...The average January air temperature over the central portion of the sea is about 46 °F (8 °C) and decreases to between 36 and 37 °F (2 and 3 °C) to the west. Spring air temperature everywhere approaches 61 °F (16 °C), rising to about 75 °F (24 °C) in the summer. Minimum temperatures occur in the northwest, approaching −22 °F (−30 °C) during the winter cold spells, while maximum temperatures occur in Crimea, sometimes reaching 99 °F (37 °C) in summer.   

That's pretty varied!

[johnstephen29]

Hi Steve I have a few young tubers of kuznetzovii, I was going to plant them out next spring, after reading you post I might just try one see how it goes.