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!Gladiolus unguiculatus 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 the Linnean Society, Botany 16: 178. 1877. (J. Linn. Soc., Bot.) Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 1/11/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 2/16/2017)
Description: Plants 300–600 mm high with red or green cataphylls. Corm 15–25(–35) mm diam.; often dark red on the outside and sometimes internally; tunics membranous and irregularly broken to fibrous and reticulate, red-brown. Leaves of the flowering stem usually short and entirely sheathing, hardly distinguishable from cataphylls, 2 or 3, usually 60–90 mm long, somewhat longer below and exceeding internodes, shorter above and shorter than internodes, thus imbricate below but rarely so above, sometimes lower with blades up to 40 mm long (rarely, 2 basal leaves fairly well developed and with limbs exceeding the sheaths); foliage leaves produced on separate shoots after blooming, (1? or) 2 or 3, linear to narrowly lanceolate, ultimately 300–450 x 4–8(–12) mm; margins and main vein thickened and hyaline). Stem erect, rarely branched, c. 2 mm diam. at spike base. Spike 10- to 18-flowered; bracts green, 10–15 mm long, inner somewhat shorter to nearly as long as outer. Flowers cream to light purple or pink, upper tepals flushed pink or light to deep purple, lower 3 with deep purple spear-shaped marking in upper third, surrounded by a lighter area, sometimes with a dark spot at base of dorsal tepal, in profile windowed with a gap between dorsal and upper lateral tepals; perianth tube c. 10 mm long, curving outward between bracts, widening near mouth; tepals unequal, dorsal arched over stamens and style, 18–20(–24) x (8–)10–12 mm, much narrowed toward base, upper laterals smaller, joined to lower 3 for 3–5 mm, directed forward and ultimately curving outward, lower 3 tepals smallest, usually united for 1–2 mm, horizontal or directed downward distally, in profile usually exceeding dorsal, 10–12 mm long, narrowed below into claws with limbs abruptly expanded. Filaments 10–12 mm long, exserted 4–5 mm from tube; anthers 6–8 mm long, yellow. Ovary 2–3 mm long; style dividing opposite lower half to middle of anthers, branches 2–2.5 mm long, reaching to between middle and apices of anthers. Capsules ellipsoid-ovoid, 12–16 mm long; seeds more or less elliptic, c. 7 x 4 mm. Chromosome number 2n = 26, 26 + 2B, 24. Flowering time: at the end of the dry season or early in the wet season, October to December in southern tropical and central Africa, mostly May to July in West Africa.
Country: Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo (DR), Cameroon, Malawi, South Sudan, Senegal, Gabon, Guinea, Benin, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone
Distribution and ecology: most widespread species of Gladiolus after the well-known G. dalenii, occuring throughout West Africa, from Senegal and Gambia in the west to the Central African Republic and western South Sudan in the east, and southward through Gabon and Congo (DR) to Angola and across central tropical Africa, including Zambia, Malawi, southern Tanzania an northern Mozambique (absent from most of East Africa except for southwestern Tanzania, fairly common throughout its range and is a conspicuous element of the pre-rain or early wet-season flora; favouring seasonally wet sites with shallow soils and poor drainage and are sometimes found in flushes on rock outcrops, also occurs in open savanna, along the upper margins of dambos, and in light deciduous woodland, where it completes its flowering before the surrounding trees have produced their seasonal flush of leaves.
Diagnosis: the most distinctive feature of Gladiolus unguiculatus is the absence of foliage leaves on the flowering stem. Instead, the flowering stems bear three, sometimes only two fairly short, nonoverlapping, entirely sheathing leaves. This feature combined with an erect spike of small, distinctly windowed flowers makes it relatively easy to recognize. Unlike other species of small-flowered tropical African Gladiolus that lack foliage leaves at flowering, leafy shoots are produced from separate buds on the same corm toward the end of the flowering cycle. G. unguiculatus is often confused with the common tropical African G. atropurpureus, that also flowers early in the season. The latter species has flowers of a similar size and coloring and also lacks foliage leaves on the flowering stem. Vegetative and floral details of the two species differ considerably, and despite their having been considered conspecific at times, they are probably not immediately related. The spikes of G. atropurpureus are always inclined toward the ground and the flowers have broader tepals so that they are not windowed in profile. The corms of G. atropurpureus also differ in being small and in having coarsely netted tunics, often thickened below into claw-like ridges, thus quite different from the rather large corms of G. unguiculatus with their reddish, membranous to finely fibrous tunics. G. oatesii from Botswana, northern South Africa, Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique have also been confused with G. unguiculatus but have smaller corms, the lower leaves consistently have a short blade, and, probably do not produce foliage leaves from separate shoots. The corm tunics are always fibrous, sometimes coarsely so, in these populations, and the corm tissue is white whereas in G. unguiculatus the corm tissue is most often reddish. The flowers do, however, conform to typical G. unguiculatus.

 


 

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