Hello, As a non-expert it really looks very much like Gladiolus italicus. An identifying cluse is the lower petal have a lighter stripe in the middle, though I don't know if other glads heve that too, . Perhaps this website photo will help: http://flora.huji.ac.il/browse.asp/… They are finishing blooming here now. All the best, Shmuel Silinsky Jerusalem, Israel USDA zone 9 On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:47 PM, M. Gastil-Buhl <gastil.buhl@gmail.com>wrote: > Thank you Dylan and Lauw for G. communis and G. italicus. I agree both > these species resemble my plant in some ways. > At first, from most photos, I would have agreed with G. communis. But > based on anther length and corm texture, my best guess now is G. > italicus, > now that I have seen the Bulb Garden article. > > The Gladiolus italicus in the Bulb'Argence picture > see: > > http://bulbargence.com/m_catalogue/article.php/… > has floral bracts tinted red or purplish-green. Is that just the > lighting in the photo? > My un-labeled Gladiolus has floral bracts the same color as its > leaves, a light to medium green with no hint of red. > My Gladiolus petals are narrow and pointed, but not quite as > dramatically as the above Gladiolus italicus. And the white streaks on > the bottom petals are not as pronounced. But there is a resemblance. > > Looking at the Gladiolus italicus photos on the PBS wiki I do see a > resemblance between mine and the first photo, but not the 4th photo. > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… > Not an identical match, but close. But that photo does not resemble > the G. italicus on the Bulb'Argence site. > > I looked at Gladiolus communis as Dylan suggested and some of the > photos on google image do resemble my plant, others do not. > The photo on the pbs wiki > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… > has petals more broad than mine and more blooms per stalk. > > Having narrowed the field, I looked for a key to distinguish these two > species. > I found a thesis about G. illyricus in Britain which also covers G. > italicus adn G. communis and keys those two apart by the length of the > anther relative to the filament. (I do wonder if anthers and filaments > shrink the same amount as they dry for herbarium preparation.) > > page 10 > G. communis = anther shorter than filament > G. italicus = anther longer than filament > > I took new photos to show that on my unlabeled Gladiolus, the anthers > are longer than the filaments. > > http://flickr.com/photos/gastils_garden/… > > The thesis 'The Taxonomic Status of Gladiolus illyricus (Iridaceae) in > Britain' by Aeron Buchanan got those criteria from > T. G. Tutin, V. H. Heywood, N. A. Burges and D. H. Valentine > (Editors), 1980, Flora Europaea. > Volume 5. Alismataceae to Orchidaceae (Monocotyledones), Cambridge > University Press. > > Before I was a PBS member, there was an article in The Bulb Garden > which describes the Italian Gladiolus species. > A draft of that article was mailed to me this morning and this clears > up the matter. > Angelo Porcelli writes about how the seeds of G. italicus are unique > in that they are not winged. I will have to wait to see seeds. > Comparing my corms to his, I would lean toward G. italicus. And he > writes that G. italicus is a prolific offsetter, which mine are. > The middle tepals of mine do not overlap the top and bottom tepals, > which indicates G. italicus over G. communis. > > I am going to label mine as Gladiolus cf. italicus (cf loosely means > "best guess"). Thank you PBS for good info, as usual. > > - Gastil > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >