Volume 2 — PLATE CXXXVII. GLADIOLUS NANUS. Dwarf Gladiolus.

CLASS III. ORDER I.

TRIANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Three Chives. One Pointal.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Corolla sexpartita, ringens. Stamina adscendentia.

Blossom six divisions, gaping. Chives ascending.

See Gladiolus roseus. Plate XI. Vol. I.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Gladiolus foliis lanceolatis, plicatis, pilosis; scapo toto florigero longitudine foliorum; corolla ringente, laciniis longissimis, divaricatis, undulatis; spatha trivalvi.

Gladiolus with lance-shaped leaves, plaited and hairy; flower-stem quite covered with flowers the length of the leaves; blossom gaping, the segments very long, spreading different ways and waved; sheath three valved.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. The three valved Sheath. 2. A Blossom cut open and expanded, the Chives remaining attached. 4. The Seed-bud, Shaft and its Summits, one of them detached and magnified.

The Hibbertian collection has furnished us with this extraordinarily handsome Gladiolus. Our drawing was taken at Clapham, in August this year, when we were informed by Mr. Hibbert that he had received the bulbs but a few months before, from his collector at the Cape. It has little likeness to any one of the Genus yet in England; but from the character of the leaves, we should incline to think, the treatment required for Ixia plicata, (of which species we have drawings of more than twenty varieties, known under the names of I. villosa, I. rubro-cyanea, I. punicea, I. purpurea, &c. &c.) that is to say, to be kept through the winter months, in more heat than is required for the generality of Ixias and Gladioluses.

PLATE 137