380 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE GLADIOLUS. 

 By the Eev. H. H. D'ombkain, B.A., F.E.H.S. 



[Kead August 25, 1891.] 



Although there are many sections of this beautiful flower — the 

 early-flowering varieties of Colvillei, nanus, and ramosus, and the 

 more recently introduced so-called hardy ones of the Lemoinei and 

 nanccanus sections — I presume that it is of the gandavcnsis 

 section that I am particularly called upon to speak to-day. I 

 labour under some disadvantage in so doing, not arising from 

 inexperience, for I have been for thirty-four years growing it, but 

 because last year my friend Mr. Kelway gave a very exhaustive 

 lecture on them, and as that lecture has been published in the 

 Journal of the Society,* you can all refer to it, and think 

 perhaps that I am trespassing on his preserve. In excuse for my- 

 self, I may say that there is a good deal of difference between the 

 experience of a cultivator of twenty-four acres, with its hundreds 

 of thousands of bulbs, and the amateur who grows only a few 

 hundred bulbs, and yet perhaps the experience of the latter may 

 be as useful to the great bulk of gardeners from the very small- 

 ness of his culture. 



The late Mr. Eivers, in his "Amateurs' Eose Guide," says at the 

 commencement that writers too often take for -granted that their 

 readers know more than they really do ; and as I quite agree with 

 that, I shall at the outset state what a Gladiolus is, and how it 

 grows, for some people have the most delightfully vague notions 

 on this subject. Without, then, harassing you by technical terms, 

 I may safely say that it is a corm ; it is not a bulb like a Lily, 

 nor a tuber like a Eanunculus. If you strip off the outer skin of 

 one of these corms you find that there are almost always two 

 eyes, and that from these the shoot is emitted. As the stem grows 

 so does the corm which is to form the plant for next year, and by 

 the time that the flower has reached maturity this corm for next 

 year is fully formed, the old corm perishing, after having supplied 

 nutriment to the new one. Around this, in various positions and 

 of different shapes and sizes, are to be found a number of small 

 ones, which we call spawn, the French bulbules, and it is from 

 these that the supply of corms is kept up. They differ much in 



* Vol. XII., Part 3, p. 5G4. 



