HARDY GLADIOLUS. 



559 



flower. You were admiring the Gandavensis at a distance ; but 

 you will find the others all the liner as you gaze at them nearer 

 and for a longer time. 



What is most astonishing to those who study the great im- 

 provements made with hardy hybrid Gladioli in so short a period 

 is the almost unlimited natural variation, which has allowed us 

 to obtain and to preserve by selection colours which were quite 

 unknown in the various kinds of Gladioli previously in cultiva- 

 tion. We can easily understand that, starting from a species 

 with yellowish flowers, we should find in the offspring a strong- 

 proportion of yellow shades ; but what is less easy to comprehend 

 is why these yellow tinges are far deeper and purer in the hybrids 

 than in either G. purjnireo-auratus or any of the Gandavensis 

 hybrids, and that we also get bright scarlet and orange-coloured 

 blooms ; and it is altogether oat of our power to understand how 

 it is that w T e obtain plants with nearly blue flowers ; nor can we 

 determine which of the two parents must be charged with the 

 paternity of such new colours as are unknown in the Ganda- 

 vensis group, and impossible to perceive in the small yellow 

 purpiireo-aiirattts. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that 

 hybridisation generally extends considerably the bounds of 

 natural variation, and produces in the offspring shapes, sizes, and 

 colours which were quite unknown in either of the original 

 parents, and which would never have appeared had not the 

 mixture of two different types disturbed and greatly diminished 

 the heredity of both types. This theory will appear even more 

 probable if we study the transformations imparted to the hardy 

 race of Gladiolus through the influence of the new species 

 Gladiolus Saunders i i . 



Gladiolus Saicndersii * was sent to Mr. W T ilson Saunders, of 

 Worthing, by Mr. Thomas Cooper, a collector of plants in 

 Natal. It flowered for the first time at Kew, and a coloured 

 plate of it was published in The Garden of July 27, 1877, 

 from a plant which had been in flower the year before in 

 Messrs. E. G. Henderson & Son's nurseries. It is a rather 

 dwarf species, the spikes not being more than 2 feet high. The 

 short leaves are of a pale, glaucous green, and the slender foot- 



* G. Saundersii was first described by Sir J. D. Hooker in the Botanical 

 Magazine in 1870, snb. t. 5873. The drawing was made by Mr. Wilson 

 Saunders from a plant flowered in his garden at Rsigats. — Ed. 



