GLADIOLUS ILLYRICUS AND ITS ALLIES. 131 
firm the opinion of those who consider that it is really indigenous ; but 
as Mr. Wise has found it in abundance in several other localities, few 
will now be. inclined to deny its claims to rank as a native plant in 
England. .A.corm of the Gladiolus brought from Lyndhurst, and 
planted in Mr. Hewett C. Watson’s garden at Thames Ditton, has 
flowered there and produced capsules. Mr. Watson informs me that 
the capsule is obovate, flattened at the top, with three keels. Professor 
Babington is doubtless right in referring the New Forest Gladiolus to 
G. Illyricus, Koch ; the only others with which it could be confounded 
being @. imbricatus and G. communis, Koch. The former is not found 
. to the. west of Germany, and though as slender, has a taller, stiffer 
stem, more numerous and closer flowers, which are shorter, and wi 
the segments of the perianth (especially the three upper ones) more 
suddenly expanded, the expanded part assuming a rhomboidal instead 
of an oval form,—much the same shape as those of G. palustris, Gaud. ; 
but that has the lower perianth-segments considerably longer than the 
three upper ones, and the fibrous covering of the corm consists of 
stronger fibres, which, at the summit, where they anastomose, form 
broadly ovate, or polygonal meshes. From the plant usually termed 
G. communis by Continental botanists, the only points in which G. 
lllyricus seems to differ are the shorter and more slender stem, nar- 
rower leaves, shorter and less numerous flowers of the latter. Dis- 
tinguishing characters have been laid down between G. communis and 
G. Ilyricus, drawn from the form of the stigmatic lobes, the shape of 
the anther-cells and the seeds, but I fear they are of little value. In 
- G. communis, which is described as having the stigmatic lobes gradually 
enlarged from the base to the summit, I find that they are so only 
when the flowers first expand; these lobes are at first longitudinally 
folded and oblanceolate.* They afterwards open out, and besides this 
the-upper part actually increases in breadth so that they become 
spathulate, with a narrow base and an oval lamina; precisely what is 
described as the distinguishing mark of G. Illyrieus, in which plant, 
however, I have not yet had the opportunity of observing if this change 
of form takes place. The anther-cells which Koch describes as “at 
length divaricate at the base,” are certainly often so in the dried specimens, 
but not in the New Forest plant when alive. As to the seeds, they are 
* This word does not seem to be in use among English authors, but I follow 
Professor Asa Gray in employing it to designate a form for which we have no other 
precise term. 
K 2 
