Gladiolus on the wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (Sat, 06 Mar 2004 11:15:23 PST)

Dear All,

I assume that a lot of people from our list are attending the winter study
meeting of NARGS in Eugene Oregon this weekend. I hope they will report
when they return. Here in northern California it is a gorgeous day and
there are all kinds of bulbs in bloom.

I'd like to report on some recent additions to the wiki. I'll start with
some South African Gladiolus in bloom at the moment. There are a number of
early blooming varieties that don't fare very well in my climate. The rain
and wind bat them around and they are often lying instead of standing as a
result. When I shelter them, they may not get enough light and still look
like they need support. I can't remember if they seemed like this in the
wild. Perhaps they are supported by low bushes. I know a lot of the species
from the wetter parts of South Africa's winter rainfall areas bloom later
and perhaps this is how they cope.

Many are so beautiful that I keep trying and some years am rewarded with
sunshine at the right times. One that I wouldn't put in the beautiful
category however is Gladiolus abbreviatus. This seems a very apt name. I
got seed of this because the drawing in the Manning-Goldblatt book made it
look floriferous and kind of interesting. In real life my reaction was
more, "Is this it?" Definitely a collector's item. We saw some in the wild
on one of the IBSA excursions and we were all excited at every bulb we
found in the dry year, but I ended up tossing all my slides of it as I
decided I'd never include it in a slide show. I had a terrible time
photographing this one as the camera always chose to focus on the
background, but finally tried a trick Alberto suggested and put clear
plastic behind it. Bob thought I need to put up a picture looking up at the
flower so you can see parts of the flower you can see head on so I've added
pictures of both. This one has a reddish tint, but there are some that are
brownish. Now have I gotten anyone's attention? It is supposed to be
pollinated by sunbirds which are gorgeous colorful birds so perhaps that
would be a reason to grow it if I lived in South Africa. I'll be on the
look out for hummingbirds.

Definitely more beautiful is the species Gladiolus bullatus. When Rhoda and
Cameron McMaster took Bob and I, Lauw de Jager, and Patty Colville to
Boskloof we saw it. It has a reputation for being hard to grow. I've been
waiting for Cameron to put a picture he took of it up, but he's very busy
so added one of Bob's from our visit to Boskloof.

Blooming now is a species we also saw in the wild and a very beautiful
thing, Gladiolus carinatus. My picture is a close-up which makes you think
it is bigger than it really is. It is not a large flower, but the markings
are really lovely.

Finally when we were in South Africa on our own having a lunch stop Bob was
looking for birds with his binoculars and said he thought he had seen a
blue flower that might be worth getting closer to. We scrambled up this
hillside until we finally reached the flower. Someone had gotten there
before us. Can anyone tell me what this insect is that is so enjoying this
Gladiolus?

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

We were very disappointed but continued to climb around until we found at
least one flower unscathed. I believe it is Gladiolus rogersii. Seeds I've
tried of that have never germinated, but in the last IBSA Bulletin Rod
Saunders writes about growing from seed and he says Gladiolus seed is not
very long lived.

Pictures of those four species can be found on:

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Mary Sue

Mary Sue Ittner
California's North Coast
Wet mild winters with occasional frost
Dry mild summers