Cyclamen cilicium
Family: Primulaceae (19 species)
Common Name(s): Persian Violets, Sowbread
Grown by: Don Mahoney, San Francisco Botanic Gardens
cyclamen - kylos, circle, either for the rounded partially exposed tuber or the way the flowers and fruits coil/uncoil
cilicium - cilicia, a classical area of southwest Turkey
Although a favorite food of swine, cyclamen are considered a connoisseur item amongst rock gardeners, bulbophiles and variegated plantphreaks. The leaves are strikingly marked, mottled, streaked and blotched with a range of greens, silvers and creams often with a violet reverse. The leaves may be orbicular, heartshaped or almost palmate like ivy. Some forms are evergreen but most are deciduous, as this is. Blooming in autumn, the onehalf to oneinch flowers look like little pink, crimsonly blotched reflexed primulas resembling umbrellas blown insideout by the wind. These will readily colonize an area of good drainage, lightly mulched and with dappled or morning light. Hardy in the SF Bay Area.
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