Gladiolus monticola outer colours and bracts

Two, pointed bracts subtend each Gladiolus monticola flower, forming a narrow tube around the flower base. The bracts in picture are greyer than the green sometimes seen, suggestions of purple and brown debatable. The outer bract is about 2 cm long, the inner one here only slightly shorter; on some plants well shorter.

The dark, purplish brown flower stalk is wiry, meandering between flowers in rounded zigzags. Dull pink colouring is present on the outer tepals and on the long, narrow corolla tube that only shows outer tepal surfaces.

The flowers are pollinated by long-tongued flies, bodily equipped for obtaining nectar from the bases of the perianth tubes (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Clarke and Mackenzie, 2007; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist).