Cyclamen

Cyclamen — Cyclamen is a genus of 20 species of flowering plants, traditionally classified in the family Primulaceae, but in recent years reclassified in the family Myrsinaceae. The genus is most widely known by its scientific name cyclamen being taken into common usage; other names occasionally used include sowbread and sometimes, confusingly, persian violet (it is not related to the violets), or primrose (neither is it a primrose).

Cyclamen are native to the Mediterranean region from Spain east to Iran, and also in northeast Africa south to Somalia. They are perennial herbaceous aestivating plants, with a surface or underground tuber (derived from the hypocotyl) 4-12 cm diameter, which produces leaves in late winter, and flowers in the autumn; the leaves die down during the hottest part of the Mediterranean summer drought to conserve water. The leaves are rounded to triangular, 2-10 cm long and 2-7 cm broad, and usually variegated with a pale silvery horseshoe-shaped mark round the middle of the leaf. The variegation is thought by some botanists to be a form of natural disruptive camouflage to reduce grazing damage by animals. The flowers are produced in whorls of 3-10, each flower on a slender stem 3-12 cm tall, with five united petals; the petals are usually reflexed back 90° to 180° erect above the flower, and vary from white through pink to red-purple, most commonly pale pink. The fruit is a five-chambered capsule 1-2 cm diameter, containing numerous sticky seeds about 2 mm diameter. Natural seed dispersal is by ants, which eat the sticky covering and then discard the seeds. Cyclamens are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including The Gothic.

Cyclamen typically grow in dry forest or scrub, where they are at least partly shaded from intense sunlight. The species vary greatly in winter frost tolerance, with the hardiest species (C. hederifolium) tolerating temperatures down to -15°C, or -30°C if covered by snow; others, such as C. somalense from northeastern Somalia, do not tolerate any frost at all. Climate change models suggest many species could become extinct in their current range within the next 50 years.