code: 602
It grows from a tuber and is native to pine, juniper
Family: Primulaceae
Common name: Alpine Cyclamen, Cyclamen trochopteranthum
Plant Classification: Hardy perennial
Minimum Height: 8 cm
Maximum Height: 10 cm
Packet Content(approx.): 8
This perennial has pendulous pink flowers with widely-spaced petals, rather like propellers of a plane. It grows from a tuber and is native to pine, juniper, sweetgum, or cedar woodland at 350–1,500 m above sea level in an area of southwestern Turkey, northwest of Antalya, where it is isolated from other species of the Cyclamen coum group.
Sowing advice:
Seeds should be sown at any time, and as soon as possible after you have received them. Sow the seeds thinly onto a gritty, loamy compost and cover about 6mm or 1/4 inch deep as light can inhibit germination. Keep at between 10 and 15 degrees C. Germination can take from one to twelve months and is generally erratic, a strategy that has evolved to protect the strain in the wild. Pot on into a low-organic content compost.
Habitat:
Cyclamen alpinum grows in a typically Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and warm wet winters but with a wide altitudinal range, from sea level to about 1700m so, high up it is more alpine in nature, as summer is notably cooler and winter brings deep snow cover. At lower levels, it grows in the shade of deciduous trees and shrubs, at the edge of evergreen scrub or among open pinewoods, in the higher reaches, it grows in sparse grassland under cedar trees or in damp/north facing limestone screes.
Cultivation:
Cyclamen alpinum is a frost hardy plant but tends not to do so well in the garden in northwest Europe, perhaps because the summers are too wet compared with its natural habitat. It is a good pot plant for a cold greenhouse.
