Gladiolus lemoinei (Gladiolus lemoinei)

Description

Gladiolus L. is the common name of flowering bulbous plants of the genus Gladiolus (from the Latin , diminutive of gladius , sword) of the family iridaceae. The genus Gladiolus contains about 260 species , 250 of which are native to sub-Saharan Africa , mainly South Africa . About 10 species are native to Eurasia . There are 160 endemic gladiolus species from southern Africa and 76 from tropical Africa. The species range from very small to the spectacular spikes of giant flowers available in the trade. They are widely cultivated worldwide, because of their highly decorative curls and have great commercial value. Gladioli grow from rounded, symmetrical corms, (similar to crocuses) that are enveloped in several layers of brownish, fibrous tunics. Their stems are generally unbranched, producing 1 to 9 narrow, sword-shaped, longitudinal grooved leaves, enclosed in a sheath. The lowest leaf is shortened to a cataphyll. The leaf blades can be plane or cruciform in cross section. The flowers of unmodified wild species vary from very small to perhaps 40 mm across, and inflorescences bearing anything from one to several flowers. The spectacular giant flower spikes in commerce are the products of centuries of hybridisation and selection. The flower spikes are large and one-sided, with secund, bisexual flowers, each subtended by 2 leathery, green bracts. The sepals and the petals are almost identical in appearance, and are termed tepals. They are united at their base into a tube-shaped structure. The dorsal tepal is the largest, arching over the three stamens. The outer three tepals are narrower. The perianth is funnel-shaped, with the stamens attached to its base. The style has three filiform, spoon-shaped branches, each expanding towards the apex. The ovary is 3-locular with oblong or globose capsules,containing many, winged brown, longitudinally dehiscent seeds. These flowers are variously coloured, ranging from pink to reddish or light purple with white, contrasting markings, or white to cream or orange to red. The South African species were originally pollinated by long-tongued anthophorini bees, but some changes in the pollination system have occurred, allowing pollination by sunbirds, noctuid and Hawk-moths, long-tongued flies and several others. In the temperate zones of Europe many of the hybrid large flowering sorts of gladiolus can be pollinated by small well-known wasps. Actually, they are not very good pollinators because of the large flowers of the plants and the small size of the wasps. Another insect in this zone which can try some of the nectar of the gladioli is the best-known European Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum which usually pollinates many popular garden flowers like Petunia, Zinnia, Dianthus and others.