the idea of the Madagascar origin of the plant is a mistake. 
Forbes only touched at the south of the island, and the 
only Gladiolus which has been found by recent collectors 
lives high up amongst the hills of the centre. Writing in 
1836 (Amaryllidex, page 366) Herbert spoke of oppositi- 
jlorus as a beautiful species, imported, as he understood, 
from the neighbourhood of the Natal river, and this earlier 
idea is no doubt correct. He speaks of it again in his 
_ Classical paper on hybrids, in the second volume of the 
“Journal of the Horticultural Society,” in 1847 (pages 
88 and 89). 
A dried specimen of the plant here figured was sent to 
Kew from Transkeian Kaffraria by Professor Macowan in 
1878, and several years later that excellent botanist 
forwarded bulbs, from one of which the plant here raised 
in the Royal Gardens, Kew, has been drawn. 
Descr. Corm large, globose; tunics of mottled-brown 
fibres. Whole plant about five feet high. Stem bearing 
alternately at some space from one another about six 
erecto-patent ensiform glabrous green leaves of firm tex- 
ture, of which the largest reaches a length of more than 
two feet and a breadth of more than an inch. Spike dense, 
a foot or a foot and a half long; spathe valves lanceolate, 
green, those of the lower flowers an inch and a half or two 
inches long. Perianth-tube narrowly funnel-shaped, two 
inches long; lobes ovate, much shorter than the tube, 
white with a keel of mauve-purple, the three lower smaller 
_than the three upper. Stamens much shorter than the 
perianth; anthers large, linear. Style overtopping the 
anthers, with three long spreading branches.—J. G. Baker. 
arcane 
Fig. 1, Anther, front view; 2, anther, back view ; 3 £ style sal its 
branches, all enlarged ; 4, whole plant, much reduced. 
