Update on Ammocharis

Tanzania and the National Parks

Tanzania has an area of about 365,000 sq. mi., larger than Texas (267,000 sq. mi.) but smaller than Texas plus California (158,000 sq. mi.). Its population is roughly 40 million, of which about one-third or more are Christian, less than one-third Muslim, and the rest are animist. There are 146 different tribes and distinct languages or dialects in the country. The national language is Swahili, but English is also an official language. It was a British colony until about the 1960s, when it became independent. Subsequently it went through a period where it was communist and is today a peaceful democracy. In fact, it and South Africa are about the only countries in all of Africa that are not fighting insurgencies or some sort of civil wars. And it looks to be dirt-poor. Over half its total national income derives from the tourist industry. It ought to tell you something that the best paying jobs in the country are in the tourist trade.

Tanzania lies just south of the Equator and is a tropical country with no seasons recognizable as summer or winter by someone who lives north of the Tropic of Cancer (about 23 degrees North latitude). Instead, it has rainy seasons and dry seasons in the savannahs. These distinctions are much less pronounced in the mountains, where rain can fall at other times than the rainy season and agriculture appears to be much more rewarding.

Gibbs Farm view from the garden

Kenya lies just north of Tanzania and is famous for Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, which is actually in Tanzania.

Mt. Kilimanjaro late in the afternoon

The elevation of Tanzania ranges from sea level along the Indian Ocean coast to 19,000 ft at the top of Kilimanjaro. Much of the area we visited, including Tarangire National Park and the Serengeti, lies at around 4,000 ft. elevation. The higher elevation areas carry less risk of malaria than do lower elevations.

The Ngorongoro crater is the center of a large Conservation Area. The rim of the crater reaches about 7,000 ft. elevation in places, and the bottom of the crater is around 5,000 to 6,000 ft. (estimates our guides made). Wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, various antelopes, and elephants are transient residents of the crater, wandering freely into and out of the basin. There are also resident lions and hippos. Lions are territorial and tend to wander less than the other species. Although Ngorongoro is famous for its black-maned lions, there are currently only two adult black-maned male lions in the crater, according to our guides. The male lion we saw was magnificent but he was as blond as you could ask for.

Male Lion in Ngorongoro Crater

The Serengeti National Park has an area of about 5700 sq. mi. (ca. 15,000 sq, km.), smaller than Kruger Park in South Africa (7500 sq. mi., 19,500 sq. km.) For comparison, Switzerland is about 16,000 sq. mi. and Indiana is roughly 36,000 sq. mi. (94,000 sq. km.) The Serengeti is a huge area of grasslands and savannah.

Serengeti Savannah Landscape

There are about 2 million wildebeests that migrate every year back and forth between the Serengeti and the Maasai Maru park in Kenya, along with a large number of zebras. The migration is driven by the seasonal rains, the animals trying to follow the more abundant grass growing where the rains have more recently fallen. The annual wildebeest migration was just starting to return to the Serengeti when we were there. We saw several long columns of wildebeests and a few zebras strung out from horizon to horizon.

Wildebeest at End of the Migration

The country is largely unfenced. Whereas Kruger Park in South Africa is surrounded by a wire fence that is perhaps ten feet high in places and protected by several strands of electrified wire, there are no fences at all around any of the Tanzanian parks. The animals can roam freely into and out of any of the parks and conservation areas. This leads to trouble with the villagers when elephants raid farm fields and lions try to attack cattle.

Maasai Warriors, who kill lions that attack their cattle

CYCLAMEN

Cyclamen is a genus in the Primula Family, Primulaceae. It is native to the Mediterranean basin, parts of Europe, and the Caucasus. The flowers vary from white to deep, rich rose in color. The leaves vary widely in shape, from round to heart-shaped to ivy shaped to arrow-like, and may be plain dark green or decorated with intricate silver patterns. The plants reproduce readily from seed, so there are no named clones of the wild species although many seed strains are passed from gardener to gardener.

The florists' cyclamen are all derived from the species Cyclamen persicum. They are huge compared to the wild species. I suspect they are propagated by tissue culture techniques, and I won't deal with any of them here.

It is an unusual genus in that almost all its members undergo summer dormancy or aestivation. As a result, they are not well suited to growing in the Midwest with its hot, humid, and usually very wet summers.

Except for one brief mention of Cyclamen hybrids in November 2009, I think I have not mentioned this group of plants in this blog. I've grown some of the species of Cyclamen in the past, so I'll talk a bit about them now. This is a pretty dull time of year for flowers, and is therefore a good to time review a genus I have been neglecting.

In fact, I have let my collection of Cyclamen dwindle in recent years, but I'm getting ready to try to build it back up a bit. There is much to be said for occasionally cleaning up the potting bench. I ran across some seeds of cyclamen varieties sent to me by friends over the past year's time, and this got me to planting them. And about time, too!

Common Species

The commonest and the hardiest species are probably coum, hederifolium, and purpurascens. These tolerate or even need some summer moisture, and survive cold winters in Europe.

C. coum is native to the region from Bulgaria through Turkey to the Caucasus and Israel. The leaves are simple round or heart-shaped, the flowers pink with a red nose. It blooms in autumn. The tubers are supposed to be fairly hardy, but the squirrels around here really love them; they must be tasty.

C. hederifolium is native to most of southern Europe and is widely naturalized elsewhere in Europe. The leaves are varied in shape and coloration, with round shapes, arrow shapes, and others. There are forms that have intricate patterns in silver on the leaves. This species produces roots only from the upper surface of the tubers. The flowers appear from mid-summer into autumn, and vary in color from white to rich carmine. An obsolete synonym for this species is Cyclamen neapolitanum.

C. purpurascens occurs widely in the Alps, northern Italy, and the former Yugoslavia. The leaves are round, plain green or with a slight pattern, and the flowers appear from late summer into autumn. Flowers are light to deep rose in color. This is the hardiest species; but it can be difficult to establish in the garden, as I can attest from personal experience.

More Exotic Species

Here are some of the less common species. Most of these are also much less hardy in cold climates, as far as I know. I would grow these only inside a greenhouse or in a cool, bright window.

C. africanum is native to North Africa, and superficially resembles hederifolium very strongly. It must be kept dry in summer, and blooms in autumn, usually as soon as you start watering it again.

Cyclamen africanum

C. cilicicum from Turkey blooms in the autumn. The flowers are light pink with a deep pink eye at the base of the petals.

C. graecum is native to Greece and the Greek islands and near-by parts of Turkey. It needs a dry rest and survives baking and totally dry storage in the greenhouse over summer. The leaves are large and may be marked with patterns of silver. Blooms in early autumn, sometimes starting before I resume watering. The roots grow from the bottom of the tuber and are fleshy and contractile, capable of pulling the tubers deeply into the soil.

C. intaminatum occurs locally in western Turkey. It is much less common in cultivation than any of the above species. This is one of the smallest species of Cyclamen, with only parviflorum being smaller. The flowers appear in autumn. The flowers are white or light pink, with very distinctive veins in the petals.

C. libanoticum is native to Lebanon. The mottled leaves are deep purple on the underside. The large flowers are white to pink and appear in late winter. Must be kept frost-free, according to some books.

Cyclamen libanoticum

C. pseudibericum is almost extinct in the wild. It comes from southern Turkey. The large flowers come up in spring. The leaves have a red underside. The roots grow from the base of the tuber.

Cyclamen pseudibericum

C. repandum is native to southern France and southern Switzerland to Italy and Bosnia, Corsica, and Sardinia. The leaves are light green with dark green mottling; they are red on the underside. The flowers are carmine with a deeper rose nose.

C. trochopteranthum - the propeller shaped flower - is found in southwestern Turkey. The unusual pinwheel flowers appear in spring.

There are plenty of other species, and numerous subspecies in addition to those I mentioned here. I recommend Christopher Grey-Wilson's book, Cyclamen, published in 1997 by Timber Press. There is also a nice section on Cyclamen in "Bulbs" Revised edition, by John E. Bryan, pub. by Timber Press in 2002.

Rebuilding my Collection

Pamela in the Pacific Northwest sent me some tiny seedling bulbs of Cyclamen hederifolium. There seemed to be quite a lot of them, so I simply spread the mixture of little bulbs, their dried-up roots, and the brown peat in which they had been packed. They went on the surface of my gritty mix in one 10-inch diameter by 5 inches deep round plastic bulb pan. I then covered them with a layer of brown sand and set the pot in a tub of water up to the surface of the mix. The pot went into the greenhouse once the medium was thoroughly soaked.