Garden Plants - Cyclamen

Cyclamen begins with a dispute and ends with an exaggeration. The dispute was between the first century Pliny the Elder and the fifteenth botanist Nicolo Leoniceno. Pliny claimed that he had seen fishermen using the roots of a plant called aristolochia to poison fish - Leoniceno argued that Pliny was mistaken, and the root in question was that of the wild European cyclamen, because he'd seen fishermen of his time using it in Campania. The argument was carried out in the pages of learned tomes or in lectures given at universities. While it carried on, and it has never been adequately resolved, the cyclamen was subjected to the Doctrine of Signatures, which says that the appearance of a plant shows the use for which it had been created by God. Because the cyclamen's leaf seemed rather ear-like, it was used to treat earache!

The Greek name comes from kyklos = circle which possibly refers to the way the seed stalks curl up and ripen among the ear-shaped leaves, but the Greeks themselves had another name for the plant - they called it chelonian = tortoise because the tubers look like tiny turtles.

It has the common name sowbread, which is deeply confusing, as many cyclamen are poisonous, although several medieval authorities claim pigs will thrive when fed on the tubers. Many English farmers called it 'stag-truffle' since they observed deer and swine digging up and eating the roots. Similarly, William Turner, botanist in 1551, said that cyclamen was so powerful an aid to childbirth that a pregnant woman shouldn't even walk over the roots of the plant, in case it brought on her birthing pains early.

Garden cyclamen photograph by joka2000, used under a creative commons attribution licence