Can you identify this? (Photo)

[Leah2005]

What is this my neighbour has found in the garden? I've obviously advised her to move out.

Cyclamen corm?

Good advice. Ugh.

No idea but following because wtf!

FGS DO NOT WATER IT

Cyclamen. The seed pods are getting ready to break open. In a couple of months there will be pink or white flowers and the leaves follow later. These grew like weeds in my last garden but are not thriving in this one. Love them.

It's a hardy Cyclamen corm with seeds pods! No need to move out! There are two Cyclamen species that are commonly grown in gardens - C. hederifolium, which is Autumn flowering, and C. coum which flowers in spring. The seed pods develop on the ends of the stems, which coil up like a spring, in order to spill the seeds when the pods split. Ants sometimes "help" with the seed distribution.
I have lots of these in my garden, they have naturalised over more than 20 years, and are a delightful picture when in flower.

That corm is going to make some gorgeous flowers, at a time of year when there's not much else. It's one of my favourites. And how cool is a plant which can make 'springs'... I've no idea why

I should have read the previous post - do the springs really work?

Lots of plants make springs - have you seen the tendrils on a pea? They really do "work" - ie they can be extended and then pull back to their tight shape. They start long and straightish and wave around until they contact a stem of another plant. Then they start wrapping around the stem and contracting until you finally have a tightly coiled spiral pulling the pea up to its support - but elastic and springy to cope with wind.

I've just been out to check my cyclamen - yes, they do work - you can pull them out and they spring back.

There's all sorts of flower mechanisms that rely on springs, the obvious ones of catapulting seeds, but also mechanisms for depositing pollen on insects.

I can't quite see how they work for seed dispersal - unless they start lax and suddenly contract.

How about euphorbia? That fires seeds out at at rate of knots. Or is it notts? How do you spell that?

Knots. From literal knots in rope used by sailors to measure speed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_(unit)

Errol No, I don't either.

Ah, foolish of me! I was forgetting that the "spring" is of course the flower stem. So long flower stem to hold the flower well above the corm for pollination, but once the fruit starts to form it'd be vulnerable to being knocked off before fully ripe (where I've seen cyclamen in the wild is basically scree) so the flower stem has to retract. Thank you, Errol!

From wiki:
Fruit

The flower stem coils or bends when the fruit begins to form. The stems of Cyclamen hederifolium and Cyclamen coum coil starting at the end, Cyclamen persicum arches downwards but does not curl, Cyclamen rohlfsianum coils starting near the tuber, and Cyclamen graecum coils both directions, starting at the middle.

The fruit is a round pod that opens by several flaps or teeth at maturity and contains numerous sticky seeds, brown at maturity. Natural seed dispersal is by ants (myrmecochory), which eat the sticky covering and then discard the seeds.

I hope the OP can reassure her neighbour that as well as promising beauty it's a rather fabulous piece of evolved bioengineering!

@ErrolTheDragon I tried to but she's been eaten by the alien that just hatched in the back garden

Scarlet looking things aren't they, but it's definitely cyclamen corm. Once established they spread easily & look wonderful.

No not scarlet - scarey