Cyclamen 2006

[John Forrest]

Beautiful as this Cyclamen is, should we be seen to be encouraging the collection of them in the wild?

[KentGardener]

Hi John

I too did worry about the ethics of removing this plant from the wild and would not normally condone wild collection.  But as it is a 'monstrosity' and not at all like the normal plant I agree with it being collected.  There have been some very interesting articles on similar dilemmas within the fern growing society when genetic abnormalities are found.

It would be unlikely to survive for long or reproduce very successfully in the wild and has a much greater chance when being nurtured by an enthusiastic gardener.

with my best wishes

John




 

[Tim Murphy]

The legal position is that it is illegal to collect tubers of ANY cyclamen species from ANY country without the expressed permission of the local government authorities, or the relevant CITES/DEFRA certificates needed to bring the plants back into this country. I imagine that these rules apply to Germany too. I know that DEFRA camp out on the Yahoo! Cyclamen-L site, so we all have to be careful about what we admit to regarding the collection of wild plants I think, especially if plants on the DEFRA 'list' are being referred to.

I'm not objecting to the collection of this plant at all, nor am I passing judgement - I would have collected it myself. I collect many hellebores when I'm out in the Balkans, although I don't make a point of collecting just horticulturally attractive specimens. My reasons for collecting hellebores are scientific ones, so I must collect a range of plants, from the mediocre through to attractive specimens, so that any study is worthwhile and meaningful. Hellebores are not on any DEFRA 'list' though, so it's one less thing I have to worry about. I think it would be naive to presume that organisations such as DEFRA don't browse through this site too.

Paddy, yes I think you are absolutely right about your cyclamen seedlings. I do use peat to germinate cyclamen seeds and it does the job - it does hold moisture for a long time and that is just what you want for sown cyclamen seeds - drying out just as the seeds are germinating would be disasterous. I think your problems occur when the seedlings go into their first dormancy. The tubers are tiny at that stage and any moisture that gets into the peat will persist, which in turn probably kills some of the young plants - it's too much moisture for too long a period of time. By potting the seedlings on at the cotyledon stage, they get put into a well draining mix more suited to a plant which needs to be kept on the dry side through the summer. Not too dry for that first year though - it's better to make the mix more free draining than you first intended, because you can at least then get away with watering perhaps a little too often without actually killing anything!

[Maggi Young]

Quite so, Tim. I will just take this opportunity to restate that opinions expressed here  on the Forum are those of the  individuals posters and not necessarily of the SRGC.   Free speech is a valuable right and we are all at liberty here to express our opinions within reason!

[Ian Y]

While I encourage the discussion of the ethics of collecting plants from the wild I would like to point out that at no time has Hans stated that he collected this plant.

[Paddy Tobin]

Tim,

Now all I have to do is put this excellent advice into practice. All you say makes perfect sense and I cerainly will be following your method from now on. It certainly seems to me to be one which has a far better chance of success than that I have used to date.

Maggi,

Apologies about the pictures and thanks for your note above and e-mail. It remains a mystery as I had saved them properly and had gone throught the posting routine I had used previously. I won't bother re-posting them. They are not of any particular interest.

Paddy

[Tim Murphy]

Cyclamen elegans (photos 1 & 2) is in full flower here at the moment, providing a bit of colour in the gap between autumn and spring flowering species.

Cyclamen purpurascens is in the middle of a second, smaller flush too.

The first hellebore photo shows H. odorus from Corfu (the north of the island). I collected two of these plants back in 2001 and since then they have been the first species to flower every year. They start to flower in late October/early November. The odorus I have from Croatia, Bosnia and Hungary are much later; they are only just pushing buds through the soil surface.

The second hellebore photo is of true Helleborus orientalis orientalis, grown from seed collected near Tblisi, Georgia.

[Paddy Tobin]

Tim

I can see that I can safely take any advice you offer on cyclamen. These are beautiful plants, well grown. Many thanks for the photographs.

I must admit, in my ignorance and lack of experience, that I would have assumed the first two plants to be C.coum pewter group.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

I've several times bought seed of or seedlisted the white purpurascens only to have them ALL flower as white (or sometime pink) hederifolium. Maddening.

(What on earth did I mean by that?) ...bought seed of, or seed listed as, the white...