Cyclamen 2010

[krisderaeymaeker]

Again the snow is gone in the Flemish part of our country.
In the rockgarden ,my Cyclamen alpinum are in full flower . They even did before the different snow periods.
The flowers and leafs are not damaged by frost or snow. 

[Sinchets]

Great to see them outside, Kris.

[Roma]

I posted a pic of Cyclamen coum growing in grass on the 17th.  This is what it looked like two days later.  This is a sunny spot and the snow melted quickly.  The pale pink ones in the gravel are still under snow with only the flowers visible.
Also Cyclamen pseudibericum from Cyclamen society seed, in a pot in the greenhouse.

[fermi de Sousa]

Cyclamen graecum, now in full flower,


There are a couple of others in flower (in pots) which came as seed from NARGs but donated by Ellen Hornig ! I'll try to get a pic in the next day or two.
cheers
fermi

[ian mcenery]

Kris lovely little plant and looking so healthy  

Fermi nice to see graecum at this time of the year  

[David Nicholson]

I think one of the problems about being a novice is that you tend to take what it says on a label as absolute fact! In 2007 I bought two seedling pots labelled Cyclamen cilicium album. The first one to flower, late last August was indeed C. cilicium but wasn't forma album! Here are some pics of the second. Now as very much a beginner as far as Cyclamen are concerned I have terrible difficulty in IDing them. Given the leaf shape of this it suggests to me Cyclamen coum, as does the shape of the flowers but I would welcome some help please. The underside of the leaves is a deep reddish colour and the flowers are perhaps a deeper magenta than the pictures show. What I don't understand is why a grower with donkey's years of experience would get this one wrong?

[Paul T]

Great pics everyone!

Diane,

I much prefer your white to the Ashwood one...... I like the pale stems and it does look a cleaner white.  I also much prefer the flower shape of yours.  I think you'd better start breeding them up for all the seed orders you'll be getting from SRGCers.    Very nice.

[Basil Smith]

Diane's images of coum Ashwood Snowflake above are both enjoyable and instructive. All named seed strains of cyclamen appear to contain some degree of variation, whether one parent plant is isolated and selfed, or  two apparently identical siblings are isolated and crossed, or whether a seedling is back-crossed with its apparently identical parent in isolation from other plants. I understand that Snowflake was selected and introduced specifically for its "Christmas tree" leaf (dark green tree pattern on a silver ground), combined with an albissimum flower. Early CS trips of course brought back a number of outstanding plants with this leaf pattern, usually with bicolor or diaphanous pink blooms.

Current growers are finding the stability of Ashwood Snowflake to be around 50%, which I would consider quite commendable for a dual characteristic cyclamen selection. The commonest form of degredation would be the appearance of pinkish smudges on flowers - as in Diane's pictures. But others, say a bright silver leaf with a shell pink bloom, could be quite attractive.

[ashley]

Looks like pseudibericum David.  
Your alpinum outdoors is excellent Kris

[Rodger Whitlock]

Looks like pseudibericum David.

Not pseudibericum, I assure you. I've grown that for years, and its flowers are very distinctive. David's plant is coum. I could probably go outside this very minute and find any number of plants with precisely the same characters as David's.

Speaking of Cyclamen pseudibericum, has anyone ever heard of a pure white form? The species is a big, lusty, luscious cyclamen and a white form with good substance would be a real stunner. I nearly had a heart attack several years ago when I thought I had one, but it turned out to be a stray specimen of white-flowered coum.

[ashley]

Sorry David; Roger's right, now that I look more carefully

[David Nicholson]

Many thanks for your help Rodger and Ashley. Chris Grey-Wilson doesn't mention one in his monograph Rodger.

[Tony Willis]

Looks like pseudibericum David.

Not pseudibericum, I assure you. I've grown that for years, and its flowers are very distinctive. David's plant is coum. I could probably go outside this very minute and find any number of plants with precisely the same characters as David's.

Speaking of Cyclamen pseudibericum, has anyone ever heard of a pure white form? The species is a big, lusty, luscious cyclamen and a white form with good substance would be a real stunner. I nearly had a heart attack several years ago when I thought I had one, but it turned out to be a stray specimen of white-flowered coum.

This is my white one with a pink nose which I think is preferable to a totally white one.

[krisderaeymaeker]

Great to see them outside, Kris.

Kris lovely little plant and looking so healthy 

Your alpinum outdoors is excellent Kris

Thanks everybody for your nice comments.As I say earlier ,I like to try more Cyclamen species outside in the rockgarden in the near future.In mine opinion this is the right habitat for a lot of Cyclamen.

[Basil Smith]

Regarding Diane's images of coum Meaden's Crimson strain (#84 above), I also found it impossible to capture its density of colour; it's an ultra-deep shade, almost sombre. The bloom above is of course not fully developed; it normally has a typical coum shape and is rather below average in size. Its leaf does not vary - always a plain dark green which is a good foil for a deep crimson bloom. Degenerates lose the depth of colour, becoming a deep magenta-pink; these need to be rogued to maintain the strain.

That said, Bob Meaden had another option in mind a while back when he got in touch looking for coum Stirling Silver (photo in Grey-Wilson) which he intended to hybridise with Meaden's Crimson, hoping to combine the dark crimson with the silver. That would be spectacular, but I've no news on progress with this project.