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 



