John Grimshaw was right to point out that the nomenclature I used to explain the origin of Gladiolus x gandavnesis is not current; outmoded, I would say (and I chose that word deliberately to convey the sense that these matters of nomenclature have an element of style to them). But I think it is important to keep this in mind: although both the gandavensis line and the primulinus line have an ancestry which includes forms nominally assigned to Gladiolus dalenii, the gandavensis line of hybrids and the primulinus line of hybrids gave results which, from a horticultural point of view, were very different. In the context of the current nomenclature, it is correct to say that both x gandavensis and primulinus hybrids are of Gladiolus dalenii ancestry, that both are "dalenii hybrids". But to do so obscures an important point: the gandavensis hybrids and the primulinus hybrids were never considered to be the same thing. As gladiolus go, they are not at all alike. Was it such an important point I missed? I would say in rebuttal that perhaps the taxonomists missed an important point. When two plants which are nominally the same species produce such different progeny, that should call into question the taxonomy. It seems to me that the disparate breeding results ought to be telling the taxonomists something, perhaps something they do not want to consider. Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where my gladiolus may be small, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, it's not the size of the swordsman in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the swordsman which counts.