Species
+

Cyclamen coum Mill.

Eastern Cyclamen, Eastern Sowbread, round-leaved cyclamen

Climate known 76 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Cyclamen coum, the eastern sowbread, is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae. It is a tuberous herbaceous perennial, growing to 5–8 cm (2–3 in), with rounded heart-shaped leaves and pink shell-shaped flowers with darker coloration at the base. It is valued in horticulture as groundcover, and for the flowers which bloom in winter and early spring.

Text from Wikipedia, “Cyclamen coum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Cyclamen

Cyclamen is a genus of 25 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. In English, it is known by the common name sowbread, or, by the genus name as cyclamen. The species are native to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin east to the Caucasus and Iran, with one species in Somalia. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Cyclamen”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Primulaceae
Described by
Mill.
Native to
Bulgaria, Turkey-in-Europe, Krym +6
Wild records
741 in range· 192 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Aug, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1502mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Dec 157 mm (CHELSA)
Light
9–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Cyclamen, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and May to July in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1502 mm a year, wettest December at 157 mm, driest August at 108 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -11.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Cyclamen caucasicum Willd. ex Stev.; Cyclamen coum subsp. alpinum O.Schwarz; Cyclamen hiemale Hilebr.; Cyclamen kusnezowii Kotov & Czernova.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Cyclamen, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and May to July in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1056 mm of 1502 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and May to July. Mean temperature moves 21.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to January and March to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1502 mm a year, wettest December at 157 mm, driest August at 108 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1502 mm a year at the habitat, 1056 mm of it September to January and May to July. Wettest month December at 157 mm, driest August at 108 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 711 mm to 2536 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -11.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -11.5 °C, the absolute minimum -24.6 °C, about 70 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.2 °C in February (across the envelope cells -7.4 °C to 2.8 °C), warmest day 25.2 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -11.5 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 62% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 4 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Aug; mean night from -3 °C in Feb to 17 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 1502 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 273 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -24.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost37.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)-24.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 9–40RH 60–62 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 273 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C4 / 1–85 / 2–89 / 5–1114 / 11–1718 / 16–2122 / 19–2525 / 22–2825 / 22–2822 / 18–2417 / 14–2010 / 8–146 / 3–10
Night °C-3 / -8–3-3 / -7–3-0 / -4–55 / 1–810 / 6–1314 / 10–1717 / 13–2017 / 12–2113 / 8–188 / 4–143 / -2–9-1 / -6–5
Rain mm140 / 37–258115 / 40–211112 / 50–202111 / 54–173122 / 47–179121 / 41–186116 / 31–176108 / 34–159121 / 40–196127 / 56–241152 / 54–298157 / 44–279
DLI11 / 9–1617 / 15–2224 / 22–2931 / 29–3436 / 34–4040 / 37–4440 / 36–4436 / 33–3927 / 26–3119 / 17–2212 / 10–169 / 8–14
RH %61 / 58–6560 / 59–6360 / 58–6260 / 58–6161 / 57–6362 / 56–6461 / 55–6661 / 55–6561 / 57–6461 / 58–6360 / 57–6460 / 58–65

Each figure is the median across the 273 grid cells holding the 658 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 907:4382 (44.625, 39.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -24.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -11.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 273 distinct grid cells holding the 658 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 907:4382 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 44.50_39.375, lapse-corrected -164 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 117 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeBulgaria, Turkey-in-Europe, Krym, South European Russia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Turkey· introduced: Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, France, Romania
Kew's description“tuberous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker43.781, 39.802 · in the densest population, 441 records (60% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 741 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 192 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 49 km away. 543 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 83 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 741 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Cyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coumCyclamen coum

Photographs: (c) Patrick Hacker, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Cyclamen coum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Efficient and stable regeneration from protoplasts of Cyclamen coum Miller via somatic embryogenesis
Anika Nadja Sabine Prange, Margrethe Serek, Melanie Bartsch, Traud Winkelmann (2010) · Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC)
Trabzon İlinde Bazı Doğal Bitkilerin Geleneksel Kullanımları
Sefa Akbulut, Zafer Cemal Özkan (2014) · Kastamonu University Journal of Forestry Faculty
Eradication of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms Using the Combination of n-butanolic Cyclamen coum Extract and Ciprofloxacin
Morvarid Shafiei, Ahya Abdi Ali, Fereshteh Shahcheraghi, Azra Saboora (2014) · Jundishapur Journal of Microbiology
Antibacterial activity of different composition of aglycone and glycosidic saponins from tuber of Cyclamen coum Miller
Azra Saboora, Seyedeh-Toktam sajjadi, Parisa Mohammadı, Zahra Fallahi (2019) · Industrial Crops and Products
Triterpene Saponins fromCyclamen coumvar.coum
İhsan Çaliş, Ayşen Yürüker, Nevin TANKER, Anthony Wright (1997) · Planta Medica
Insights into chloroplast genome structure, intraspecific variation, and phylogeny of Cyclamen species (Myrsinoideae)
Lihui Mao, Qingcheng Zou, Zhong-Shuai Sun, Qing Dong (2023) · Scientific Reports
A triterpenoid saponin from Cyclamen coum
Nurettin Yaylı, Cemalettin Baltacı, Ali Zengin, Mustafa Küçükislamoğlu (1998) · Phytochemistry
Cyclamen Exerts Cytotoxicity in Solid Tumor Cell Lines: a Step Toward New Anticancer Agents?
Mustafa Yıldız, Hakan Bozcu, Onur Tokgün, Ege Rıza Karagür (2013) · Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
Comparison of aglycon and glycosidic saponin extracts of Cyclamen coum tuber against Candida spp.
Azra Saboora, Seyedeh-Toktam sajjadi, Parisa Mohammadı (2016) · Current Medical Mycology
Bioassay screening of 12 Iranian plants and detection of antibacterial compounds fromHeracleum persicumusing a TLC bioautography method
Hossein Dehghan, Parizad Rezaee, Atousa Aliahmadi (2020) · Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies
Dynamic of Plant Composition and Regeneration following Windthrow in a Temperate Beech Forest
Sakineh Mollaei Darabi, Yahya Kooch, Seyed Mohsen Hosseini (2014) · International Scholarly Research Notices
Preliminary Phytochemical and Biological Screening of Cyclamen coum a Member of Palestinian Flora
Nidal Jaradat, Motasem Al-Masri, Fatmeh Hussen, Abed Naser Zaid Abed Naser Zaid (2017) · Pharmaceutical Sciences

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Cyclamen 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 44 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.