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Variations on a small theme |
Cyclamen purpurascens |
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And the theme is small; three notes at the most. I am talking about cyclamen, of course, universally beloved and one of the puzzling genera that can attract such fixated devotees. Would you believe that there are cyclamen societies, galanthus societies and even hosta societies? I have attended a number of presentations over the years, seen a fair number of cyclamen in alpine houses, gardens and nature and, yes it's nice stuff, but there is such a much-of-a-sameness. Some speak of the leaf variations, but I remember my non-botanist father holding forth, on the basis of school-learning, that every leaf of every maple tree is different. I bet that I could get a more exciting maple leaf collection together than any cyclamen lover could assemble. |
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Claytonia lanceolata |
Naturally, my diatribe does not mean that I dislike cyclamen, on the contrary I like them, but I am not prepared to deify them. Well, with that intro, I should just recall for the sake of the young that in the late 1980's over one winter almost all of us in Southern Ontario, regardless of location, lost all of our cyclamen. No one knows the reason as the winter did not seem to humans to be exceptional in any way. Since that time we have all built up our collections again. We have three recognizably different cyclamen (but more names); CC. coum, purpurascens, hederifolium. They are easy to tell apart; C. coum blooms in the spring, C. hederifolium blooms in the fall and C. purpurascens blooms pretty well all the time. This last was a gift; a bundle of three large corms from Nina Lambert, planted out in different environments. The one in our clay-base scree has done magnificently. Huge, dark flowers, plentiful flower stems, well patterned leaves and the corm is getting ever larger. This plant is a winner and it very markedly prefers this shady and moist situation. We are pleased to be able to put some seed in ORGS seedex from this. The lack of fragrance is the only thing preventing it from getting into the Hall of Fame, but perhaps someone can do a cross with C. persicum? |
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Staying with two of my four favourite subjects, music and gardening, some years ago the Cape Breton fiddler phenomenon Ashley MacIsaac studied for a while with the American minimalist composer John Adams. Minimalist music is the extended repetition of deliberately limited material, within which a series of minute changes slowly and gradually evolve. Reminscing about the time, MacIsaac remembered that John Adams was obsessed about a note, "But it was a very nice note". Claytonia lanceolata |
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I confess to being a Claytonia minimalist. Not the megarhiza branch, but the lanceolata branch. It is native to our place and I have seen it in a many other spots. There are a number of names and the branch goes clear across North America, up to Alaska and into Siberia. The basic colour herabouts is white with a pinkish tinge and some pink tracings, but out west some populations are pure white, some are pinker, to reportedly deep yellow and orange! In Alaska it is deep pink. Apart from the colour, there really isn't very much difference visually. There is a difference in the flowering time; the Eastern ones bloom along with erythronium, but the Western ones are several weeks later, even though they are naturally snowmelt plants. |
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There is a problem in obtaining a variety of claytonias; Deno says that dry storage is a fatal treatment and my experience certainly agrees with that. No one seems to use Claytonia lanceolata or its siblings in the rock garden or in troughs. It is an inexplicable oversight. Be the first on your block to remedy it. |
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