Cyclamen.
Plants of the World Online accepts 24 species that come from parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa.
They can be divided into subgenera and series based on the tubers, roots and flowers.
The perennial plants, up to around 30 cm high grow from a tuber.
Tubers are thickenings on the underground stems (rhizomes) that store food.
Most tubers are 1 to 2 cm wide with some over 20 cm.
They may be smooth or have dense hairs making them velvety.
Roots can grow from the base, top or all over the tubers.
Solitary leaves and flowers grow from a number of growing areas on the top of the tubers.
Growing areas are small to obvious thickened stems (called flower stems).
They represent the stem of a plant below the first cotyledons.
Leaves, up to 15 cm across are on a long smooth petiole.
The blade shape is variable even on one plant.
They can be heart or kidney-shaped, hastate (basal lobes that point outwards), ovate or almost round.
The edge may be lobed (sometimes very deeply), scalloped and smooth or finely toothed.
The tip is pointed, there are no hairs and stomata (pores) are common.
The upper surface is a dark green, blue-green or grey-green.
Most species have the upper surface patterned in pale green or silver-grey.
Patterns may be irregular blotches or arrow-head shaped bands.
The shiny lower surface is a paler green, red or purple.
Inflorescences are a solitary flower on a long smooth pedicel.
In almost all species the tops of the pedicels bend down to around 180 degrees making the flowers face down.
After fertilisation the pedicel coils or bends down at the base, middle or end.
The sepals are shortly fused at the base with 5 small ovate lobes.
The corolla has a short basal tube with 5 lobes that are much longer than the sepals..
The lobes may flare out sideways, twist or bend back (up).
Occasionally the lobes have small lobes or auricles at the base.
The white, pink or purple petals may have a darker colour at the base of the lobes (the nose).
There are 5 stamens that insert onto the corolla tube.
The anthers almost always lie within the tube.
Anthers open inwards through apical pores or longitudinal slits.
There may be staminodes between the stamens.
The superior ovary, of 5 fused carpels has one# locule with a few to many ovules attached to a central placenta.
The fruit are round capsules with the sepals still attached.
Most open from the top down into 5 or more valves or segments.
They have a few sticky brown seeds.
(The ovary has 1 locule not the 5 often seen in descriptions that are just repeatedly copied from an incorrect original Examination of specimens would avoid this.)
J.F.
