ON GLADIOLI 187 



disposed of with as quick a pressure of the tip of the 

 tongue on the palate as the music-master insists on in 

 his interminable exercise on lah, lah, lah. When the 

 student has touched the palate with his tongue in order 

 to produce the labial sound, he has to get the organ 

 down into the bottom of his mouth as quickly as he can 

 in order to remove any obstacle to the passage of the 

 vowel sound from his widely expanded throat so sharply 

 must he dispose of lus. 



But flower-lovers are not all word-students. They 

 did not know that Gladiolus came from gladius, and 

 even if they had known they would not have been any 

 nearer knowing how to pronounce it, and so they went 

 their own way. Some called it Gla-die'-o-lus, making 

 four syllables, and accenting the second ; others Glad-e- 

 o'-lus, again making four syllables, but accenting the 

 third. Popular pronunciation hovers between these 

 two, and perhaps to the latter. Both are wrong, but 

 the offence committed is one of those that people who 

 know must deal gently with, rebuking the offender by 

 no more drastic method than taking the first opportunity 

 of repeating the name with the accent in its proper place. 



However great our enthusiasm for the Gladiolus may 

 be and if we have once grown it successfully, that 

 enthusiasm is likely to be warm we have to acknow- 

 ledge that it can hardly be classed as one of the great 

 flowers of the people. :It is hardy, it is grown easily, it is 

 almost incomparably beautiful, but it just misses greatness. 

 Except in the case of one or two kinds, it lacks perfume, 

 and it is not quite capable of holding its own in the 

 rough and tumble with Nature which garden plants 

 have to undergo sometimes. Perhaps this is more 

 marked in a liability to attack by wireworms than in 

 susceptibility to cold. But a plant must be wireworm- 



