Gladiolus monticola

Gladiolus monticola, commonly in Afrikaans the bergpypie (little mountain pipe), is a cormous perennial reaching heights from 30 cm to 45 cm. The corm of up to 2,5 cm in diameter is covered in a layered tunic of coarse to fine, vertical fibres.

The cataphylls are pale and membranous, the tallest one around 8 cm, green and hairless, later dry and brown. Two short, sheathing stem-leaves are grown above the cataphylls, sword-shaped to linear, up to 30 cm long. The lower leaf is often purple. The leaves are hairy or hairless and dry or absent at bloomtime.

This range-restricted species only occurs on the Cape Peninsula in the Table Mountain National Park, from the Apostles and Table Mountain to Silvermine.

The plants grow on rocky, sandstone derived slopes and plateaus among fynbos, at elevations from 500 m to 800 m. The species is considered to be rare but not threatened as its population is deemed stable in habitat early in the twenty first century (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Clarke and Mackenzie, 2007; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).