Hi, gang. The other day I was looking for some Gladiolus pictures online, and ran across a Japanese website that has some pictures of first-generation hybrids of South African Gladiolus species. If you're a species bulb purist you won't find this at all appealing, but to me it was very interesting to see what happens when some of the species are crossed. It's amazing how much genetic variability there is in this genus. Some of my favorites: Gladiolus alatus x rogersii (elegant pink and purple flowers) http://geocities.jp/unisery/mugenka/… Gladiolus rogersii x carneus (beautiful markings) http://geocities.jp/unisery/mugenka/… Gladiolus bonaspei x hirsutus (fluorescent pink) http://geocities.jp/unisery/mugenka/… Here's a link to a translated page listing all of the species and hybrids in the author's collection (warning -- Mary Sue reports that this link does not work in the Chrome browser): http://translate.google.com/translate/?hl=en <http://translate.google.com/translate/… http://ies.jp/unisery/mugenka/gladiolus.html> &sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://geocities.jp/unisery/mugenka/… Here is a link to the page in Japanese: http://geocities.jp/unisery/mugenka/… I have not been able to figure out any information about the author, other than that the home page is titled "Unisery." If anyone has information on the grower of these hybrids, I'd be interested. Mike