IN June 1969—I was at university and most of you were still unborn—I bought a bag of cyclamen corms in Woolworths.
They were labelled C. neapolitanum, which was the name then given to the hardy autumn-flowering species that we now call C. hederifolium. I planted them in shallow trays, so that I could enjoy their flowers in our conservatory before planting them out later in the autumn. When they flowered, I noticed that their petals had little notches at their tips, a characteristic I hadn’t seen before.
My parents lived in Wiltshire and I knew Oliver Menhinick, the great plantsman who was then Director of Horticulture at Lackham, our county horticultural college. I asked Oliver if he’d ever seen cyclamen with a frilly edging before and he replied that, actually, my plants were a very rare species called C. mirabile, which came from a small area within that corner of southwest Anatolia that the Ancient Greeks called Phrygia.
Plant collection in Turkey was completely unregulated in those days and millions of bulbs and corms were dug up and exported every year, mainly to Dutch wholesalers who packaged them for retail. Which is how I came to buy them in Woolworths.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 22, 2017-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 22, 2017-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
