Gladiolus carmineus

Gladiolus carmineus, commonly known as the Hermanus gladiolus or the 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; foliage and flower years usually alternating. The reduced stem leaves, seldom producing a blade, sheathe the stem. Plants that produce leaves annually after flowering, the two events not overlapping, are called hysteranthous. 

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 mostly all streaked with a white line down the centre, reaching about halfway up the length. Dark veins radiate out on the tepal surfaces to the margins. Three slightly kidney-shaped yellow anthers are visible on the flower in picture, well above the green of the ovary. Only one flower is usually open on a stem 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 along the south coast of the Western Cape from Hangklip to Cape Infanta. 

The habitat is coastal sandstone outcrops and cliffs, the plants often wedged in cracks between rocks, sometimes in 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).