Beautiful Autumn Flowers
Signaling that summer's end is near, drifts of bright pink dainty little flowers almost seem to appear overnight. Hardy cyclamen initiate the coming parade of fall color and cooler temperatures with their lovely Autumn bloom. Year after year the perennial autumn flower show never fails to perform, blooming August to November with a handsome attractive foliage that lasts through spring.
Starting in late summer a myriad of 4 to 6 inch (10-15 cm) flower stalks appear with buds quickly developing and blooming through the fall. The flowers are rose pink with a V-shaped purple-magenta splash at the base of each petal. The occasional white flowered form also blooms, rare in the wild, but now common in cultivation. C. hederifolium are apparently both self-pollinating and pollinated by insects. They set seed easily. White forms will almost always come true from seed if the parent plants are isolated from the pink ones. Depending on the weather a large tuber can produce new blooms continually over 8 to 12 weeks making 40 to 50 individual flowers that last 3 to 6 weeks.
Handsome Winter Foliage
Leaves appear following the first bloom. Once polinated the petals fall and the seed capsule coils and disappears under the new foliage. The large attractive leaves are glossy and varied from plant to plant. Leaves can be round, oval, or pointed with wavy, serrated, or smooth edges. Leaf color can vary also, from dark to light green, with beautiful fractal-like marbling of silver and white. The leaves remain through the winter to late spring.
Cyclamen hederifolium life cycle
When summer's heat commences, the leaves shrink and dry up, once again exposing the coiled flower stems on the top of the tuber. When the seed capsule ripens it starts to split, the seed can be collected and sown, or can be left for distribution by insects and birds. The seeds are covered with a sticky substance that ants will harvest, taking with them some seeds which they eventually discard, while the rest may fall about the mother corm. C. hederifolium spreads and self sows quite readily and after a number of years a colony will develop.
Note in the photo that the seed capsule in the upper center has split open and about to release it's seeds. In the upper left there are two baby corms pushing out of the ground. Click photo for larger image.
Cyclamen hederifolium is the most widely grown hardy cyclamen in the U.S. It is a very vigorous plant that can produce an abundant amount of blooms. They are long lived, some growers claim they have corms that are approaching 100 years in age. The hederifolium corm is a very unusual type of plant. The corm or tuber is basically a fleshy modified stem that stores water and energy, with roots that grow from around the top. Flowers and leaves form their own stems and grow from the center of the top. Each year new growth expands the size of the corm and it is not unusual to see saucer plate sized corms after six or more years. They are dormant during the summer months and all sign of them becomes invisible, so be careful where you dig!
Cyclamen are propagated only by seed, this may partially account for the plants being free of the virus diseases seen in so many other popular garden plants. If left undisturbed they can form a large colony. Though they slowly spread and creep out of their beds they aren't a nuisance plant as it is easy to control their boundaries.
Cyclamen hederifolium origins habitat
There are 20 species of Cyclamen most all are native to the Mediterranean region. All cyclamen species bloom at different times throughout the year. It is possible to grow several species for continuous blooms. The hardiest of these are C. purpurascens, coum, repandum and hederifolium. The word "cyclamen" derives from the Greek word kyklamenos which means "circle form" a perfect description of the cyclamen corm. Cyclamen have been in cultivation since Platos time, several hundred years B.C.
Cyclamen hederifolium is considered the most hardy of cyclamen species. It is a prolific bloomer and vigorous. It's natural habitat is in woodlands, scrub land (chaparral), and rocky hillsides from sea level to 4,262 ft (1300m). Growing best in the light shade and decayed leaf mulch. It is well adapted to wet winters, during it's flowering and growing period, and dry summers that induce dormancy.