Gladiolus oppositiflorus

Gladiolus oppositiflorus, the salmon gladiolus or large salmon gladiolus, is a robust perennial reaching heights from 50 cm to 160 cm, forming small clumps.

The above-ground parts are regrown annually from a globose to slightly flattened corm about 3,5 cm in diameter. The pale brown, layered tunics covering the corm are leathery to papery, usually extending upwards in a short neck around the stem and leaf bases. Tunics become tattered, particularly on persisting, old corms.

The inflorescence in picture consists of salmon-coloured flowers in two opposing ranks as the specific name suggests.

The species distribution is in the Eastern Cape and southern KwaZulu-Natal to near the Lesotho border.

The plants grow in stony, montane grassland, thicket and savanna, mostly in seasonally moist and even marshy places. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).