Dear All, A number of years ago I received some plants from Jim Robinett he had labeled Gladiolus huttonii. I shared some with the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens and subsequently grew some more from seed Bob Werra gave me. I thought they were delightful plants which is why I grew more of them, but they just didn't match the description in my books of that species and I wondered if there was that much variation of the plants in the wild. This year several pots of mine were in bloom in February and March for a long time and I was quite enchanted with all the variations in the flowers and interested that the ones that were almost all yellow bloomed first. I am wondering if these are not really Gladiolus huttonii, but hybrids instead. I wrote Alan Horstmann who was going to check with John Manning for me. Alan thought they were probably hybrids with Gladiolus tristis in the parentage and had a distant memory that someone else in South Africa had grown plants like this from Kirstenbosch seed. My friend Jana has some that look like these pictures and hers were grown from Kirstenbosch seed. Alan has not heard back from John and is now away I believe. I'd appreciate an opinion from other South African members on this forum about this. Is there this kind of variation in the wild? I'm afraid I got a little carried away when I added them to the wiki as I couldn't decide which of the different forms to include. Sorry about that. That happened with me and my Moraea (Homeria) hybrids too. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… The picture below Bob took of Alan's Gladiolus huttonii when we visited in South Africa a couple of years ago. Alan suspected that is the only picture we have on the wiki that is not a hybrid. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… As my garden continues to be full of blooms of South African bulbs and I have a lot of pollinators visiting my flowers I realize that probably a great deal of the seed I have given to the BX and exchanges could represent hybrids. With as much as I grow I just don't have time to hand pollinate. For many gardeners it probably doesn't matter as they are just interested in having pretty flowers. For those wanting pure species it could be a problem. Mary Sue
