Gladiolus scullyi

Gladiolus scullyi, in Afrikaans the patryspypie (little partridge tube (!)), grows in Namaqualand and the western Karoo, north of the high rainfall area, but still in winter rainfall land. The soil of its habitat is granite slopes and clay sediments; the vegetation is Karoo type scrub.

The flowers are not usually spectacularly coloured. In this photo the yellow-green patches on the lower tepals suggest that a higher opinion is in order.

The related species of G. venustus shares a transitional area with G. scullyi near Nieuwoudtville, where some plants are hard to place in either category. Evolution presents grey areas where distinctions are continuous, rather than discrete. Life is about becoming, as well as about being (www.pacificbulbsociety.org; Manning and Goldblatt, 1997).