Cyclamen

My favourite winter house plant

I got this little cyclamen on a whim - I hadn't even seen one with such tiny flowers, or such a vibrant colour. It cheered me up through the whole of the winter, and is finally going dormant now in late spring. It also made a glorious background to my photos of my succulents, which I have drawn and talked about in this post.

One of the things I find most fascinating is the upside-down, inside-out flowers. 

Another interesting thing that I learnt in passing was that the variegation on the leaves is actually not just a variation in the colour of the leaf itself - there are several types of variegation. This one is called "chimeral", specifically, reflective. 

Some variegation is due to visual effects caused by reflection of light from the leaf surface. This can happen when an air layer is located just under the epidermis resulting in a white or silvery reflection. [...] Leaves of most Cyclamen species show such patterned variegation, varying between plants, but consistent within each plant.

Source:
​Wikipedia

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