I.D. on Gift Plant

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In the Spring of 2006 my hort buddy David Leeman and I brought a large number of plants back from the UK. I should point out that we did this completely legally with permits and phyto certification etc. It was great fun and, at times, a tremendous amount of work, but we were very happy with our purchases and had a 100% survival of our plants despite the rigorous bare rooting and cleaning we had inflicted on them.





Buying plants is, of course, always fun, but we were also gifted plants by friends, and amongst those gifts was a lovely Cyclamen with pewter coloured leaves. Over the last four years this plant has matured and only this year am I able to identify it as being C. mirabile.
C. mirabile is notable for the flush of pink or red on the surface of the leaves as they emerge from dormancy, in most cases this fades to reveal broad silver or pewter bands underneath. But in the gift plant the foliage is evenly pewter all over and in the last two years the immature leaves have also been marked with a pink blush.




Seeing these features I was able to identify this as C. mirabile, but not only that, by consulting Christopher Grey-Wilsons's book on Cyclamen, I was also able to recognize it as one of the few cultivars of the species as C. mirabile 'Tilebardn Anne'. It now joins the other two cultivars that I grew from seed C. mirabile 'Tilebard Nicholas' and Tilebard Jan'. All three are pictured above.


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