Cretan Cyclamen
The Cretan cyclamen belongs to the family of Primoulides. In many places of Greece, cyclamens are also called "hiropsomο" (i.e. bread for pig), because their roots are eaten by pigs. They grow in the middle of autumn between rock fissures or in the rubble.
Cyclamen creticum is the only endemic species of cyclamen in Crete. Like all other cyclamens, it has a condyle in the root, while its leaves have a long stalk and the form of an oak. Its stalk is thin, purple and its lamina thick, shaped like a heart, dark green with white blurs and red-purple underneath.
Its blooms are also secondary roots, placed on a long stalk, rosy, slightly odorous, with a calyx made of five parts and a corolla whose petals form five lobes and as they grow, five stamens turn towards down.
Its snow-white (rarely light rosy) flowers appear in March-April and it is found in the mountainous and semi-mountainous zone in shadowy locations, usually under trees. Its root is used in pharmaceutics.
