HYBRIDIZING GLADIOLUS SPECIES. 



145 



and floribundus that appeared quite identical with Gandavensis, as we have 

 been able to procure the type, while on the other hand repeated attempts, ex- 

 tending over many seasons, to hybridize cardinalis with psittacinus and its 

 allies have uniformly failed. This is the experience of more than one Euro- 

 pean investigator, and may be taken to almost conclusively settle the matter. 

 Oppositiflorus, with its tall growth and many-flowered spikes, often opening 

 l8 to 24 blooms almost simultaneously, together with its delicate peach-and- 

 white tinting, seems a most promising parent for producing fine whites and 

 light-tinted varieties of the exhibition type, but our own profuse trials, as 

 well as the results of many contemporary breeders', show an appalling amount 

 of chaff to very few grains of wheat. The results of the first two generations 

 of hybridity are almost nil in a decorative sense, but the third consecutive 

 pollenization with the best modern white and very light kinds has developed 

 some very pretty and hopeful new varieties. The looked-for high-class pure 

 white has not come by this means, though an almo.st stainless oppositiflorus 

 was used at the beginning and rigid selection since maintained. Really clear 

 whites have appeared from psittacinus and drachocephalus, hybridized with 

 oppositiflorus, showing very strong pollen influence, but they have little vital- 

 ity and low powers of perpetuation. Floribundus appears the more promising 

 of the two as a parent, though inclined to transmit red coloring to its seed- 

 lings. Its hybrids are more likely to bear flowers facing one way than oppositi- 

 florus, which takes its name from the distichous or two-ranked manner in 

 which the blooms are borne. The only other useful member of this group 

 known to us is a new one which came labeled "narrow-leaved species from 

 Swaziland." The corm had evidently been collected when immature, and lay 

 dormant two years, at last producing a long spike — ^2 flowers — of very short 

 and small blooms, pale lilac with feathery markings of a deeper shade. The 

 blooms face one way and open well together. It is a very late blooming sort, 

 but a few hybrids were secured which are now well under way. All growers 

 of Gladioli of the Gandavensis type know there is a constant preponderance of 

 the red varieties. The white and light colors tend to degenerate with greater 

 or less rapidity, while the reds increase in number and maintain their vigor. 

 So rapid and complete is the reversion in some instances as to amount to 

 wholesale atavism. Considerable numbers of a choice Gandavensis variety 

 have, propagated for generations in the usual manner from cormels, changed 

 in a season so as to closely resemble the tj'pical red and yellow Gandavensis. 

 This seems to confirm Mendel's theory of dominant and recessive factors in 

 all hybridizations. Taking psittacinus as the dominant, oppositiflorus acts in 

 most instances as the recessive type, and tends rapidly to efface itself in favor 

 of its virile partner during reproduction by seeds, and to a lesser degree 

 during extension of a given hybrid plant by cormel or bud propagation. 



Gladiolus purpureo-auratus is well known to be the foundation 0/ the 

 popular Lemoine and Nanceianus strains of commercial varieties r.nd G. 

 Papilio of the "blue" Lemoinei kinds. These latter comprise a number of 

 attractive heliotrope and purple-blue shades in the typical hooded form of the 

 parent. Papilio albus is a handsome slender-growing variety, reproducing it- 

 self perfectly from seed. It is very pure white in color, with a crimson purple 

 blotch. Crossed with the bqst whites among the Gandavensis and Lemoinei 



