Not Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby'

[Diane Whitehead]

After several years of growing seeds of Gladiolus papilio 'Ruby' which never were, I have finally decided to identify what I actually grew.  These are in flower now.

And I did manage to buy a plant of Ruby from Far Reaches in Port Townsend Washington.

[David Pilling]

Diane - beautiful flowers. Over on the wiki we once had an academic bloke who was an expert contact us and put things in order.

[Diane Whitehead]

Did our wiki have many mis-named plants?

[David Pilling]

Did our wiki have many mis-named plants?

Oh good grief. He was the guy who said he would like to help, but there were so many things wrong it was not worth starting.

I said at the time academics are like that, in my days in mathematics I witnessed horrible arguments, and that in a subject where you'd imagine there is no room for debate.

He was an expert in gladiolus, and fixed up one or two of them. I suppose I should try to find his name for you, but by now it is like 10 years ago.

[Martin Bohnet]

I still think our wiki has less mis-namings than the general trade (which is not difficult), but the European Gladiolus are ID hell. I think it could be any of Gladiolus illyricus

Flower Colors:

purple

, Gladiolus communis

Height:	45-60 cm (1.5-2 ft)
Flower Colors:	purple

or Gladiolus byzantinus

Flower Colors:

purple

. I'd think I'd exclude Gladiolus italicus

Flower Colors:

purple, white

via flower shape, and it seems too big for Gladiolus caucasicus. And I guess Gladiolus palustris

Height:	30-60 cm (1-2 ft)
Flower Colors:	purple, white
Flower Season:	early summer
Life form:	deciduous corm

would have rebelled for drought by now.

[David Pilling]

I still think our wiki has less mis-namings than the general trade (which is not difficult)

Around that time I programatically checked the wiki against IPNI and we found bugs in the latter - nothing is going to be error free and that's before you get on to things which are debatable.

[Diane Whitehead]

I read the article Gladiolus of Southern Italy and it seems to be Gladiolus byzantinus.  However, just in case it's not, I won't donate its seeds.

Diane

[David Pilling]

As Martin says European Gladdies are difficult. G. Byzantinus is a common one.

When I searched my emails, I found this from 2015, I need to look on an older computer.

"
I was telling a friend about this thread a bit ago. When he responded, he seemed to be using the word "gladiolas"; I asked him to repeat it, and he distinctly said "gladiolas" again. When I asked him about it, he responded "isn't that the plural of gladiolus?". He then went on to talk about the ways he had learned to form the plurals of words.I don't remember ever having been taught rules for forming the plurals of words. If anyone else remembers any of those, it might be interesting to see how such rules might have played a role in producing the word "gladiola". It would be neat to discover an old teaching manual which uses "gladiolus, pl.  gladiola" as an example. This word "gladiola" might be a European import, or an Americanization of a European word. In German, for instance, one word used is die Gladiole (plural die Gladiolen) - note that the singular ends in a vowel, a vowel which to American ears might sound like one of the many variations on "a".   Apparently gladiola is the nominative singular used in Czech, and there is a European hotel chain named Gladiola.
So the word is probably here to stay.
Jim McKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where it's raining again - good thing I covered the aril irises early this year.
"

[Martin Bohnet]

the "e" at the end of Gladiole is so closed in the throat it will never pass for an open vowel like "a" - which, again in German is more of an "ah" than that strange "ei" that's used in English so ok, maybe that's where the mixup comes from. Anyway, Latin - the plural is definitively "Gladioli". I had my real troubles when first hearing Americans talking about them - before I never had a second of doubt to put the stress on the O which is correct if the o is long - it is "for me", mostly because it makes sense after the short, closed "i" I use (and which seems to be correct classical Latin) instead of the English sound - Gla(DIE!!!!)olus? Nobody is dying here (I always wondered where that y is coming from, by the way, maybe an English linguist can elaborate? I'm always so close to chemically changing the color of something here...) So ID isn't the only problem around that wonderful family...

[Uli]

Hello Diane,

If you wait for seed, this may help. Angelo Porcelli describes the seed of Gladiolus italicus as round and not winged (about the size of a black pepper grain) and the other two species have winged seed of different size (gladiolus communis and byzantininus)

I have seen a beautiful deep purple form of gladiolus byzantininus in English gardens but never managed to acquire it. Whatever I bought under this name always turned out to be something different. 

[OrchardB]

If you did Latin at school you would learn all syllables are the same length; so no long i's, o's, or anything else. Difficult at times when having a conversation about plants.

[Martin Bohnet]

I DID Latin at school, thank you. And I don't think there is a single language where all vowels are always the same length. Bonus points if length changes meaning..

remember os ( -> ossis) Bone (short)  and os ( -> oris ) Mouth (long)?