the horticultural society of new york 



Botany, History and Development 

 The gladiolus plant, a member of the Iris Family, comprises a 

 corm, with a few fibrous roots, long, narrow, sword-like leaves, 

 and flowers in long spikes. The so-called bulb is technically a 

 corm, an underground stem with the internodes flattened and 

 contracted to form a rather solid body. This dies each year, a 

 new one forming beneath it, and between and around the two, 

 numerous small corms, or cormels, are developed. The corm is 

 red or yellowish to white, and is covered with a thin, brown tunic 

 or skin which is easily peeled off. The flower, which has a peri- 

 anth of six segments, which may be also called three sepals and 

 three petals, is generally broadly tubular to funnel-shaped, and 

 often has the segments wide-spreading. The arrangement of 

 the perianth is of two distinct types, although variations are 

 often found. This arrangement, called aestivation by Alfred C. 

 Hottes,* is by him denoted as: a one-lipped type, in which the 

 uppermost segment is on the outside, the lowermost within and 

 often spotted or blotched; and a two-lipped type, in which the 

 uppermost segment is within, the lowermost on the outside, forc- 

 ing the two lower lateral segments to form the lip within. This 

 latter type gives us two lips, often dotted and blotched. The 

 earlier species of gladioli were in few-flowered spikes of small 

 funnelform flowers; modern kinds have many flowers on long 

 spikes and vary from wide-tubular to wide-spreading. 



Baker, in his Handbook of the Iridiae, published in 1892, gives 

 132 species of the genus Gladiolus. While most of those con- 

 cerned in the history of the modern type of flower are natives of 

 South Africa, some European and Asiatic species, the old corn 

 flags, were cultivated in England before the year 1600, and many 

 more species were discovered before 1800. An inspection of the 

 descriptions and illustrations of the species used in the develop- 

 ment of the newer types impresses one with the remarkable re- 

 sults which have been accomplished. Some of these species are: 



Gladiolus cruentus — a tall vigorous plant, with scarlet and 

 white flowers. 

 * Gladiolus Studies, II, Culture and Hybridization, 1916. 



