First described by the German botanist Friedrich Hildebrand in 1898 and in cultivation
by June 1899, Cyclamen libanoticum was however ‘lost’ in the wild until rediscovered
by Eliot Hodgkin and Pere Mouterde in 1962.

Against this back-drop the aim of the field study in March 2014 was to find out
more about the habitat in which C. libanoticum grows, find out how variable the
plant is in the wild, to map its current distribution and establish the extent to
which it is threatened.

In May 2012, Lebanon became a party to CITES (The International Convention
on Trade in Endangered Species) and with the assistance of Myrna Semaan
the team was fortunate to obtain permission from the Lebanese Ministry
of Agriculture to collect herbarium specimens, and dried leaf material
for DNA analysis.

Cyclamen coum, C. Libanoticum and C. persicum were encountered.
21 sites were surveyed, material for herbarium specimens was collected
from 23 plants, and dried leaf samples from 22 plants for DNA analysis.

Reports of this 2014 field study were published in the
Cyclamen Society Journal Vol. 38 No. 1, June 2014. (C. libanoticum)
Cyclamen Society Journal Vol. 38 No. 2, December 2014. (C. persicum & C. coum)