Gladiolus watermeyeri flowers

Outside the flower, the large floral bracts of Gladiolus watermeyeri are bright green to dull green, translucent along their veins. The outer bract, up to 4,5 cm long, is acutely pointed, the inner slightly shorter with forked tip.

Inside the flower, the three stamens cohere, arching more strongly than the hood formed by the dorsal sepal above them. The hood in picture is distinctly lined on its outer surface. The white, oblong anthers, usually 1 cm or longer, have black lines on their sides.

The style droops over the stamens, longer than them. The three white style branches, sometimes 8 mm long, don’t curve much in picture.

The lower three tepals hang together below, deep gold-yellow to olive-green, their tips white and pointed.

Pretty as these flowers may be here, they are inconspicuous in the veld, often hard to see but well liked by bees that have no problem finding them. Exceptional scent may exceed looks as a floral feature of the low-growing G. watermeyeri (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist).