Quick Characteristics:
| Flower Colors: | white, yellow |
| Life form: | corm |
| Climate: | summer rain climate |
Gladiolus longicollis Baker is a species found in a wide area of southern Africa, including the southern Cape, the eastern Cape, the Free State and the Northern Province. It has pale yellow to white long tubed flowers that are either uniformly colored or mottled with brown. Flowers are night blooming and sweetly scented of carnation and cloves. There are two subspecies:
Gladiolus longicollis ssp. longicollis has a shorter perianth tube and transparent upper tepals and flowers October to November. It is found from Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape through the Eastern Cape and Free State and into Lesotho and Gauteng where it usually grows on moist, south facing slopes in low grassy fynbos or rocky grassland.
Gladiolus longicollis ssp. platypetalus (Baker) Goldblatt & J.C.Manning has a longer perianth tube and broader petals with the outer whorl tepals longer than the inner whorl and grows in rocky grasslands from central KwaZulu-Natal to Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Its flowering season extends into January and possibly February.
The first three photos from Cameron McMaster and the next two from Mary Sue Ittner. Photos three thru five were taken at Naude's Nek.
The first photo from the book Plants of the Klein Karoo courtesy of Jan and Anne Lise Schutte-Vlok. They describe it as growing up to 60 cm tall with narrow cylindrical leaves and flowers with red brown spots and lines. The anthers are not much exposed, a characteristic that helps distinguish it from a similar looking Gladiolus tristis. The second photo is from Arnold Trachtenberg.
