Gladiolus sericeovillosus subsp. sericeovillosus bract hairs

Gladiolus sericeovillosus subsp. sericeovillosus is hairy on its leaves and floral bracts. Its distribution partly overlaps with that of the other, glabrous leaf and bract subspecies, occurring more to the southeast of South Africa, subsp. calvatus.

In picture the sparsely silvery hairs are seen on the inflated, faintly greenish bracts. They are positioned below the pale, glabrous corollas that are suffused with delicate hues of yellow and pink on different tepals.

Long, thin anthers in contrasting dark brown and whitish colouring show themselves partly, positioned near the dorsal tepals, but not nearly reaching the front ends of the corollas. The anthers are, however, easily accessible to pollinators in the widely open, obliquely funnel-shaped corollas, as are the branched stigmas usually arched over the stamens. The anthers become up to 1 cm long, only slightly shorter than their filaments (Goldblatt, et al, 1998).