Cyclamen 2013

[fermi de Sousa]

I'd forgotten to check the Cyclamen graecum seed-pods on one of the plants in the rock garden till it was too late,
cheers
fermi

[SJW]

Fermi - it'll be interesting to see where in the garden graecum seedlings start appearing!

Which has me pondering about seed dispersal mechanisms and seed sowing depth. I know Ian Y is a great advocate of sowing many (but not all) bulb seeds at depth, including cyclamen. From an earlier bulb log: There has been a lot of research into how to sow cyclamen seeds and how to treat them to optimise germination; , I am not a cyclamen specialist but I have my own method. One of the methods written about is the requirement of darkness before germination will occur - I provide this by sowing the seeds half way down a pot. Cyclamen seeds are coated in a sticky substance to encourage ants to distribute them and like other bulbous seed that is ant distributed it has evolved to germinate well if buried under ground - so that is just what I do.

I can see that the elaiosome surrounding bulb seeds attracts eg ants, and they will carry them away from the parent plant thus minimising competition for light and nutrients. That clearly makes evolutionary sense. But do ants then drag them underground  to a depth of 3"-4" or more before scraping off/eating the elaisome food source? Why would they do this? If, say, they take them back to the ant nest to store or consume there then presumably you'd find prodigious bulb seed germination around and on ant nests. Is this the case? Has anyone observed this? There's obviously benefits to sowing many bulb species deep - a dark, more stable environment and less chance of drying out before germination, for example - but perhaps the main one is that the seedlings then don't have to expend extra energy using contractile roots to pull them down to their optimal depth? Ian Y has written about this many times, of course. But is the benefit actually just for the grower in that it can shorten the time to first flowering? Presumably, contractile roots evolved to take the bulbs down to the right depth - if it's the dispersal agent, eg ants, that buries the seed to a decent depth then wouldn't there be less of an evolutionary driver for bulbs to develop contractile roots?

Sorry if this sounds a little dry and academic but thought it would be an interesting discussion to open up.  For the record, with cyclamen seed I surface sow, cover thinly with more compost, and top off with grit.

[cycnich]

Steve
           For the record I do exactly the same as you and achieve around 90 percent germination , it is not rocket science and nor should it be. Where's the fun in that ?. Cyclamen are so easy from seed and what mother nature does and what we do in cultivation should not be compared they are totally different. If you try to imitate the former you will usually fail which I have found out to my cost many times in the past.

[Maggi Young]

Too close an attempt to mimic "nature" might well be a frequent cause of failure - ask anyone who has tried growing autumn gentians in standing water, as they have been reported as being seen in the wild.  The better question in that case is how often did that happen, for how long and were the plants still alive the next year!!

Mostly when we are sowing seeds "deep" it is half way down an 9 or 11 cm pot - so around a depth of two inches, probably.  The cyclamen seed scattered willy-nilly on the gravel in the garden will germinate, though they seem to like it better when they are given a better covering.  In a pot, of course the conditions are completely unnatural and so deeper sowing may give them a happier start to life in Aberdeen.

[cycnich]

Maggi
            I have never tried to grow anything standing in water, that sounds very uncomfortable and could lead to trench foot. I guess by the time my seeds are covered with grit they will be 2cms deep but I am unconvinced about the need of darkness, I know of people who germinate cyclamen seed on damp tissue in full light with great success. But stick with whatever works for you is my advice and don't over complicate things for no reason, it has to be enjoyable as well.

[Maggi Young]

Very wise of you , Pat - up here you'd be lost to hypothermia before the trench foot got to you......
 

[cycnich]

You are right maggi I don't do the cold thing or the wet and windy thing but looking at the forecast I don't think I can avoid it in the next couple of days. Why couldn't I have been born in Greece? .

[Roma]

The last flowers are fading on Cyclamen cyprium but the winter flowerers are starting.
Cyclamen coum album flowering 14 months after sowing
2&3 Cyclamen coum in the garden
Cyclamen elegans
First flower on Cyclamen alpinum

[David Nicholson]

Very nice Roma.

My cyprium are well over now. Coum in the garden in bud, but one isolated plant in a north facing bed has been in flower for weeks and alpinum in the greenhouse also in bud.

[SJW]

The last flowers are fading on Cyclamen cyprium but the winter flowerers are starting.

Yes. my cyprium have gone over, apart from this one in a 6cm pot. It's been quite floriferous for a small plant. Pity the foliage isn't better!

[SJW]

Cyclamen coum album flowering 14 months after sowing

That'a good going, Roma. This pot of C. coum 'Golan Heights' has been slower: first flowering from a January 2012 sowing.
The flowers on this C. alpinum have really grown over the past two weeks.

[SJW]

C. coum in the greenhouse will be coming into their own soon. A really cheering sight on a miserable winter day!

[SJW]

I've never been sure what C. coum 'kuznetsovii' should look like - whether it's a specific variety or a strain with leaf and flower colour variation. There's a photo on the Cyclamen Society website labelled: Cyclamen coum ssp. coum 'kuznetsovii' - the form from the Crimea. (I think this was taken at Tilebarn Nursery). This matches one of the plants I have. Thereagain, I also have a silver leaf plant, probably from the same packet of CS seeds....