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!Gladiolus atropurpureus Baker Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 1876: 335. 1876. (J. Bot.) Name publication detailView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 6/6/2016)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 1/12/2017)
Description: Plants 300–600 mm high with green or brown cataphylls. Corm (10–)15–20(–30) mm diam.; tunics fibrous, pale straw-colored, fibers mostly vertical and often thickened and clawlike below. Leaves of flowering stem 3 or 4 (5), imbricate, entirely sheathing or with blades to 50(–100) mm long, narrowly lanceolate to linear, margins and main veins hyaline and usually lightly thickened (long-bladed foliage leaves on separate shoots are not known and probably not produced); leaves of nonflowering plants solitary (as far as known), linear, 150–200 x 4–6(–12) mm, usually with lightly thickened margins. Stem erect, unbranched or, rarely branched, usually lightly flexed above sheath of upper leaf, 1–2 mm diam. at spike base. Spike (3–)5- to 10(–15)-flowered, lightly flexuose, inclined toward ground; bracts green, failry soft-textured, margins often membranous, attenuate, 10–15(–20) mm long, inner shorter to nearly as long as outer. Flowers either white to cream or light purple, upper tepals often flushed light to deep purple, lower laterals each with a deep purple spade-shaped mark in distal third, or partly to entirely dark purple, rarely dark red, sometimes with pale markings on lower tepals; perianth tube 10–12 mm long, curving outward between bracts, widening near mouth; tepals unequal, dorsal arched to hooded, 15–20 x 9–12 mm wide, upper laterals smaller, directed forward below, distally curving outward, lower 3 tepals united with upper laterals for c. 5 mm, horizontal to downcurved, usually exceeding dorsal in profile, (10–)12–15 mm long, narrowed below into claws, limbs abruptly expanded, 6–9 mm wide. Filaments 6–8 mm long, exserted c. 4 mm from tube; anthers 5–8 mm long, yellow. Ovary 2–3 mm long; style dividing opposite upper half of anthers, branches 2–2.5 mm long., usually reaching nearly to anther apices or sometimes exceeding them. Capsules ovoid to ellipsoid, (10–)12–18 mm long; seeds oval to elliptic, 5–7-3.5–4.5 mm. Chromosome number 2n = 24 + 0-5B, 36. Flowering time: November and December (to early January), at the end of the dry season or early in the wet season.
Country: Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Congo (DR), Malawi
Distribution and ecology: widespead in southern tropical Africa from the western Angolan highlands through Zambia and Katanga Province of Zaire to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and south through Malawi to central Mozambique and Zimbabwe, flowering at the beginning of the wet season, sometimes even before heavy rains have fallen, set fruit in late December and January, and then become dormant through the wet months of February to April; most often found in light woodland, or low montane grassland, sometimes in rocky soils and rock outcrops
Diagnosis: because of its variability, particularly in the degree of development of the leaf blades, it is not always easy to recognize Gladiolus atropurpureus. Plants have inclined spikes of either whitish to purple-flushed or intensely purple flowers, usually with conspicuous contrasting nectar guides on the lower tepals. The corms are unusual in their pale fibrous tunics, often thickened into clawlike ribs below. Leaf blades are normally vestigial or only 2–3 cm long, and photosynthesis presumably occurs in the imbricate leaf sheaths. Occasionally, especially in late flowering specimens, the foliage leaves may be fairly well developed, and the type of G. luridus seems to represent a particularly foliose population. In some specimens of this gathering the longest leaf blades range from 10 to 20 cm and may extend beyond the base of the spike. Despite the short leaves of most plants, leafy shoots are not produced after flowering. Seedlings and nonflowering individuals produce a single linear leaf that remains green long after the flowering shoots have died back. Although flowers vary little in perianth color within populations, there seems no clear pattern to the distribution of the color forms. The type, from Morrumbala in interior Mozambique, has fairly dark purple flowers, but there are a number of collections made almost throughout its entire range that have even more intensely purple flowers, sometimes with white nectar guides. The form that corresponds to the types of both G. caerulescens and G. whytei has predominantly white to cream flowers, usually with dark purple nectar guides and the dorsal tepal lightly suffused with purple. A series of populations from the Mwinilunga District in western Zambia have long and quite broad leaf blades and always intensely deep purple flowers. Originally included in Gladiolus atropurpureus, a series of populations with yellow or yellow-brown flowers has been segregated as G. serapiiflorus. Apart from an obvious relationship between these two species, the affinities of G. atropurpureus are obscure but it has been included in G. unguiculatus, but the similarities of the plants, although striking, are superficial. Like G. atropurpureus, G. unguiculatus has reduced leaf blades, but in the latter species, leafy shoots are produced on separate shoots of the same corm after flowering. The cauline leaves of G. unguiculatus are usually short and seldom imbricate as they consistently are in G. atropurpureus. The corms are also quite different; those of G. unguiculatus are usually large and reddish internally and the tunics are dark brown and coriaceous rather than fibrous. In addition, details of the flower structure of the two species differ so that they can usually be recognized in the absence leaves or corms. Reduction of the leaf blades in these two species is clearly convergent and does not indicate close relationship.

 


 

Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political units.
 
 
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