GLADIOLUS, 101 
Hope, and are easily grown in the greenhouse in 
light open soil. ‘The flowers are small, pure white, quite 
fragrant, and produced on stalks that do not exceed six 
inches in height. They are quite rapidly increased by 
offsets. These should be separated from the parent bulb 
at any time during winter, when it is at rest. 
G. spiralis.—A pretty plant, with singularly 
twisted foliage. 
G. afra.—Botanically this is a curious plant, having 
twelve fertile stamens, while all others of this natural 
order have but six. The flowers are very fragrant, and are 
succeeded by transparent yellow berries of a pleasant 
odor, and said to be edible. 
GLADIOLUS. 
Although the Gladiolus has not the poetic and his- 
toric associations that distinguish the Lily, it is, never- 
theless, more remarkable in many respects. It is better 
adapted for general cultivation than the Lily, or any 
other of the many rare and beautiful kinds of bulbs. 
Between the Gladiolus and the Lily there is a strange 
contrast. Of all the forms of the Gladiolus under culti- 
vation, embracing, as they do, some of the grandest and 
most beautiful, as well as the most showy of floral forms, 
rarely do we see the original species, all the varieties 
that claim our attention being hybrid forms, or their 
descendants, wonderfully changed by cross-fertilization. 
So great have been these changes, that the original forms 
are entirely changed and greatly surpassed in the beauty 
of the flowers, as regards size, form, color and markings. 
On the other hand, in the creation of the Lily, nature so 
perfected her work that any improvement on the species 
has not come within the possibilities of human effort. 
From the standpoint of classification the Gladiolus 
has not been improved by the changes consequent upon 
hybridization. Some systematic botanists regard the 
