Gladiolus undulatus L.
Wild Gladiolus
Corm c. 2 cm diam., with numerous cormils at base. Stems of 60 cm high. Leaves almost = stems, linear, narrow, 1-1.5 cm wide, green tinged purple, sheaths deep red-purple. Flowers 10-12 cm long, to 8 cm diam., 3-8 in a loose, unilateral spike, greenish-cream; spathe-valves ? to ½ length of flower; tube c. 7 cm long, upper third widened and fluted; lobes 3-5 cm long, ± crinkled, tapering, with recurved tips, 3 lower lobes with central purple stripe at throat or purple colouring absent. Anthers greenish-blue. Style branches entire. Capsule not seen.
N. North Auckland; Auckland - Auckland City, Pukekohe, Raglan. Common.
(S. Africa)
First record: Healy 1958: 537, as G. cuspidatus Jacq.
First collection: Auckland, Swanson (light manuka scrub), V. D. Zotov, 12. 12. 1932 (CHR 6479).
FL. 12.
Formerly known in N.Z. as G. cuspidatus Jacq.; Lewis, Obermeyer and Barnard in their revision of the S. African spp. of Gladiolus (J. S. African Bot. Suppl. No. 10, 1972, 1-316) showed that G. cuspidatus. Jacq. was a later synonym of G. undulatus L.
Recognised by the greenish-yellow, sometimes purple-striped flowers, perianth-lobes with long drawn out tip, and by the abundance of small cormils.
G. undulatus was an early horticultural introduction and certainly a garden escape for many years before it was formally recorded. Now thoroughly established on grassy roadsides, waste places and along drains from Auckland northwards, also about Raglan and Pukekohe; in some urban localities it is a prominent weed of roadsides, vacant sections and waste places. Cormils are dispersed in fill material, in mud on roading machinery and vehicles, and in water along drains and waterways.
