Gladiolus scullyi leaves

A Gladiolus scullyi plant produces five to eight leaves. Four to six of them are basal, growing in a distichous fan-shape. The remaining one or two emerge low on the stem.

The lanceolate to linear leaves are narrow and straight, the flower stalk meandering from the side of the foliage in picture. Leaf colour is pale green to glaucous (blue-green). Leaf texture is thick and slightly succulent, the midrib thickened.

Leaf length allows the longest leaves to reach the base of the flowers, sometimes halfway up the spike. The leaves are from 2 mm to 5 mm wide.

The inflorescence and deciduous leaves grow annually from the plants perennial corm. The corm is globose to conic in shape, up to 1,5 cm in diameter. The hard tunic covering the corm is layered and woody. It reaches up around the leaf bases like a collar, while segmenting at its base with age, exposing an orange-coloured inner surface.

Small, ellipsoid cormlets grow at the base of the corm, immediately above the fleshy white roots (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Le Roux, et al, 2005; iNaturalist).