Plants→Cyclamen→Hardy Cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium)

The name of the plant in my photos was originally C. hederifolium subsp. africanum. It was subsequently changed to C. africanum, and now it seems to have been merged into C. hederifolium. It differs from other C. hederifolium plants, however, because it's actually one of the least hardy Cyclamens, succumbing to frost in any zone lower than 9. It also differs from the usual C. hederifolium in habit: The leaves and flowers extend straight up from the tuber instead of outward.

Mine rarely has leaves when it's blooming. It's an either-or proposition with this plant.

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I tried to grow ivy-leaved cyclamen outdoors, and it survived one winter, but another winter it died. It's not reliably hardy in Minnesota. So now I grow it in the basement under lights in the winter.

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In the case of cyclamens, it's possible that hardiness zones don't tell the whole story. Parts of Minneapolis count as zone 5 because the minimum temperature reached in a given winter is on average -20 F, but unlike most zone 5 areas, average daily high temperatures are below freezing from December to February. I think the continuous freezing is probably the thing most damaging to cyclamens. Perhaps Cyclamen purpurascens is more reliably hardy in Minnesota because it is tolerant of continuous freezing (if it is shaded from the winter sun), while other species are very badly adapted to continuous freezing, and so they are frequently killed. However, this is just a theory. There haven't been any studies on cyclamen hardiness in continental climates.

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