code: 601
A dwarf and exceptional species from Southern France
Family: Primulaceae
Common name: Wild Cyclamen
Plant Classification: Hardy perennial
Minimum Height: 5 cm
Maximum Height: 8 cm
Packet Content(approx.): 10
Very fragrant flowers with twisted white petals veined with pink, appear in spring and have decorative bluish-grey leaves marbled with silver. A dwarf and exceptional species from Southern France, and also the mountains of the Spanish Mediterranean islands of Mallorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Cabrera, where it grows in scrubby woodland in shady places, for example beneath oak trees.
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 balearicum grows in a typically Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and warm wet winters, with an altitudinal range from sea level to about 1400m. It usually grows on limestone, in shady places on north facing slopes, among evergreen oak, open pinewoods, evergreen scrub or in gorges and rock crevices.
Cultivation:
Cyclamen balearicum will withstand overnight frost, which may damage the leaves, but not prolonged freezing and tends to be cultivated as a pot plant in a cool greenhouse in northwest Europe. No cultivars have been named but leaves with brighter patterning, including an all over silver wash, have been selected. C. balearicum is closely related to C. repandum, C. creticum and C. rhodium. In cultivation, C.
