Description:

• Deciduous perennials, evergreen in one species
• Rootstock a corm rooting from base, basal in origin, tunics coriaceous to papery or membranous to fibrous
• Stem aerial, terete or occasionally compressed and angled, simple or branched, often flexuose, occasionally scabrid to puberulous
• Leaves few to many, lower 3 cataphylls; foliage leaves unifacial, usually with a definite midrib, 2 to several, basal or some arising above ground level, sometimes blade reduced or lacking, thus entire leaf partly to entirely sheathing, blades linear to lanceolate, sometimes puberulous or hairy, either plane and with margins, midrib, and sometimes other veins not or only lightly thickened and hyaline, or margins or midrib strongly raised, sometimes even winged (thus H- or X-shaped in section), or midrib and margins much thickened and blade apparently terete but with four narrow longitudinal grooves; usually contemporary with flowers, occasionally borne earlier or later than flowers and on separate shoots
• Inflorescence a spike, flowers usually secund, occasionally distichous; bracts green, sometimes dry above or entirely, usually relatively large, inner usually slightly smaller than outer, notched apically for 1-2 mm or entire
• Flowers zygomorphic, actinomorphic in a few species, rotate, campanulate to hypocrateriform or tubular, often bilabiate, lower tepals usually with contrasting markings constituting a nectar guide; stamens arcuate and unilateral, ascending to horizontal, or symmetric in actinomorphic species, style arched over them; frequently closing at night, often fragrant, with nectar from septal nectaries; perianth tube obliquely funnel-shaped to cylindric, shorter or longer than bracts
• Tepals usually unequal, dorsal broader and arched to hooded over stamens, lower three narrower, sometimes clawed below and united for a short distance, as long, shorter than, or exceeding upper tepals
• Stamens: filaments filiform, arising at base of upper part of perianth tube, usually exserted but occasionally extending only to mouth of tube, occasionally puberulous; anthers subbasifixed, occasionally centrifixed, rarely with sterile tails; pollen monosulcate, operculate, exine perforate
• Style filiform, exserted, branches undivided, slender below, expanded gradually or abruptly above and often bilobed apically
• Capsules usually slightly inflated, often large, ovoid to ellipsoid
• Seeds usually discoid with a broad circumferential wing, rarely globose to angled, smooth, matte, surface colliculate on seed body, areolate on wing
• x = 15 (14, 12, 11) (high polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• Second largest genus of the family after Iris, Gladiolus is one of few genera of Ixioideae that have radiated conspicuously outside the Cape region
• The affinities of the genus are uncertain but there is no doubt that it is monophyletic, being defined by its specialised winged seeds, possibly by the apically expanded style branches, and the ancestral basic chromosome number

Nomenclature:

• Gladiolus L.
  • Linnaeus: 36 (1753)
  • Baker: 198 (1892)
  • Baker: 135 (1896)
  • Goldblatt: 66 (1993)
  • Goldblatt: 1 (1996)
  • Lewis et al.: 1 (1972)
  • Goldblatt & De Vos: 417 (1989)
  • Goldblatt & Manning: 1 (1998)
• Antholyza L.
  • Linnaeus: 37 (1753)
  • Baker: 165 (1896)
  • Brown: 265 (1932); not including the type
• Cunonia Mill.
  • Miller: 75 (1759) name rejected versus Cunonia L., name conserved
• Anisanthus Sweet
  • Sweet: 566 (1830)
• Petamenes Salisb. ex J.W.Loudon
  • Loudon: 42 (1841)
  • Brown: 276 (1932)
  • Phillips: 44 (1941)
• Sphaerospora Sweet ex J.W.Loudon
  • loudon: 66 (1841)
• Acidanthera Hochst.
  • Hochstetter: 25 (1844)
  • Baker: 130 (1896)
• Ballosporum Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 142 (1866)
• Homoglossum Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 143 (1866)
  • De Vos: 326 (1976)
• Hyptissa Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 142 (1866)
• Ranisia Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 143 (1866)
• Symphydolon Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 142 (1866)
• Oenostachys Bullock
  • Bullock: 465 (1930)
• Anomalesia N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 270 (1932)
• Kentrosiphon N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 271 (1932)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 260, South Africa through tropical Africa and Madagascar to Europe and the Middle East; Southern Africa: Species ± 165, centred in the Western Cape with secondary centres in the eastern southern Africa highlands

Additional Notes:

• Pollination by long-tongued bees, mostly Anthophoridae, is most common
• The long-tubed red-flowered species are pollinated by sunbirds, or in a few instances (e.g. G. cardinalis) by the butterfly Aeropetes tulbaghia
• Long-tubed white- or brown-flowered species, scented throughout the day or only in the evenings, are pollinated by a range of moths while long-tubed pink- or white-flowered species with red markings are pollinated by the long-proboscid flies Moegistorhynchus, Prosoeca (both Nemestrinidae) or Philoliche (Tabanidae)
• Floral diversity, and the different pollination syndromes, are matched by numerous vegetative adaptations, notably reduction in leaf number and development of winged midribs and/or margins, or reduction of the entire leaf blade
• In some species flowering occurs before the leaves are produced or after they have dried