Rooting Broken Piece of Cyclamen rohlfsianum

Roy Herold rherold@yahoo.com
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 12:14:44 PST
Judy Glattstein wrote:
>
> C. rohlfsianum has such big leaves that I don't think I could 
> accommodate two of them.
> 

Judy, there's always room for more rohlfsianums. They have far more leaf 
variations than any other cyclamen I've encountered, and are far more 
satisfying than a lot of other winter greenhouse plants.

That said, it is true that they have growing points all over the top 
surface of the tuber, and the roots emerge from any part of the bottom 
surface, and up the sides to the top shoulders. As such, it is easy to 
see how any part of the tuber that might break off would have dormant 
growing points for both leaves and for roots. This is very different 
from the likes of coum and the like that have a single bunch of roots on 
the bottom, and one cluster of stems on the top. Ones like hederifolium 
or africanum might be divisible, however.

A number of years ago I had a rohlfsianum that was on the losing end of 
an attack by weevils. The tuber fell apart into three knobbly pieces 
when repotted. All of them survived when repotted into regular potting 
mixture--no special treatment required. Which begs the question, what 
keeps the tubers from rotting away after they have been nibbled by the 
weevils? Fungicidal spit?

I'm sure that Dave's graecum will be fine, even without special 
treatment. Roots are easy to regrow, but the floral trunks on graecums 
take a long time to develop.

--Roy
NW of Boston
15" of snow is melting in a balmy 56 degrees
One C. rolfsianum is still blooming



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