Gladiolus carmineus

Gladiolus carmineus, commonly known as the Hermanus cliff gladiolus, is a cormous perennial growing to 35 cm.

Three to five trailing, sword-shaped leaves are produced during winter in years when the plant does not flower, usually alternating annually. Plants that produce leaves after flowering are called hysteranthous. In flowering years reduced leaves, seldom producing a blade, sheath the stem.

Up to six deep pink, unscented flowers, carmine as indicated by the specific name, are borne on the unbranched stem. The corolla is funnel-shaped, the tepals pointed or rounded with tiny protruding tips. The lower three tepals are each streaked with a white line down the centre, reaching about halfway up its length. Dark veins radiating out to the margins are visible on the tepal surfaces. Kidney-shaped yellow anthers and three pink stigma branches can be observed on the flower in picture, well above the green of the ovary. Only one flower is usually open at a time. Flowering happens from late summer to after midautumn. 

The plant is believed to be pollinated by a butterfly called the Table Mountain Beauty (Aeropetes tulbaghia).

The species distribution is coastal along the south coast of the Western Cape from Hangklip to Cape Infanta. 

The habitat is sandstone outcrops and cliffs along the coast, the plants wedged in cracks between rocks, sometimes with virtually no soil or near the shoreline. The habitat population is deemed vulnerable early in the twenty first century, due to habitat degradation and coastal development (Manning, 2009; Bean and Johns, 2005; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).