Cyclamen kuznetzovii

[Yuri Pirogov]

Certainly, it's OK.

[johnw]

Yuri - I see in my inventory I have these three different types of caucasicum:

Cyclamen coum v. caucasicum (from the CS 1987 but can't seem to locate the seed list for that year to see the collection site)
Cyclamen coum v. caucasicum 'Macka'
Cyclamen coum v. caucasicum 'Urfa'

Might any of these be from a cold area?

johnw

[Yuri Pirogov]

I think both are areas in Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%A7ka
so not very hardy

[Lori S.]

i am disappointed to hear you finally decided the coum and hederifolium  have failed

Well, Cohan, it wasn't really a decision on my part... not a single individual of either species ever made it through a winter for me, so it was more of an inescapable conclusion, LOL!   I don't think I can, in good conscience, kill any more of those two species!

[Guff]

In my opinion, drainage is the key. I use leaf compost and sand. I have two Cilicium growing outside(second winter outside), only one coum which does have two flower buds.

[David Shaw]

I have just been searching for C.kuznetzovii on the web and my searches brought me 'home'! I got seed of this from the SRGC in January 2006 and the one that has germinated now has four or five buds. I will post a picture when it comes out.
Unusually I don't have the seed number on the back of the label so I don't know if it is garden or wild collected. Does anyone still have a 2005/06 seed list handy to tell me what the number is, please? I have it named as Cyclamen coum kuznetzovii.

[Maggi Young]

David, your seed was number 1096 and was listed in the garden origin section.

[David Shaw]

Thanks, Maggie. I will have to wait and see what it looks like then. Fingers crossed!

[Maggi Young]

Good to hear about the buds forming.... you won't have to wait too much longer!

[David Shaw]

'You won't have to wait much longer' says the attractive Young lady. Only two and a half months but it was worth it. Here is a picture as it is today. Would anyone care to give it a positive id as Cyclamen coum kuznetzovii.
I will take it to Dunblane on Saturday.

[Maggi Young]

Hmmm, a longer wait than anticipated, David.... though perhaps that's a good thing, what with the awful weather!
It is very pretty.... though what I thought  I know about C. kuznetzovii  is that the leaves are quite plain....

[johnw]

David - In his book Janis says it is important to get seed from isolated kznetzovii to assure that it hasn't crossed with other species, coum I guess.

I too would like to know its distinguishing features other than possible extra hardiness.  Mine have sort of stalled this past autumn to present.

johnw

[Rodger Whitlock]

I too would like to know [Cyclamen kuznetzovii's] distinguishing features other than possible extra hardiness.

Cyclamen coum, sensu latu, seems to have an enormous number of what you might call "ecological variants". This is what you would expect (in hindsight) of a species that inhabits hilly mountainous territory with wide variations in climate from place to place.

I have mentioned it before, but again I point interested folks to an article in the October 1974 issue of the (then) ARGS Bulletin, where Vladimir Vasak of Prague wrote at length about his explorations of Georgia, esp. Abkhazia, in search of these variants, using specific eptithets "abchasicum", "adsharicum", "ponticum", "circassicum", and "vernum". Surprisingly, he didn't even mention "kuznetzovii".

Whether any, some, or all of these variants deserve botanical status is an open question. One of the reasons Christopher Gray-Wilson upgraded Cyclamen purpurascens colchicum (aka "ponticum") to a species in its own right was that taxonomic features distinguish it from the more westerly populations of C. purpurascens, in addition to the distribution of the two forms being widely disjunct. My guess is that these variants of C. coum are really just ecological variants that have evolved in isolated populations, but that is just a guess. Perhaps it's time for the Cyclamen Society to mount expeditions to southern Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, and the Caucasus in general to try to settle this question.

While I doubt very many botanists would care to distinguish two species on the basis of their hardiness, that quality is certainly important to gardeners. Even if the botanical consensus ultimately rejects these various subtypes of C. coum as good species, it is probably desirable to maintain the distinction for horticultural purposes. Just how you convert a rejected botanical epithet to a horticultural designation I don't know.

Perhaps the botanists can arrange for a re-enactment of some particularly bloody battle on the steppes of southern Russia with the lumpers on one side and the splitters on the other, and may the best man win!

[Sinchets]

How hardy will said Cyclamen coum need to be to be deemed hardy?

[Roma]

David, Rodger,  if you look back to the beginning of this thread you will see pictures posted by Janis of Cyclamen kuznetzovii in the wild in the Crimea where it is native.  
We had a couple of plants at the Cruickshank Garden grown from seed from Yalta Botanic Garden but I don't know if they are still alive.  They were in the greenhouse, not planted outside so I don't know how hardy they would have been.