Page 24 - LandscapeSA Issue 106

ENVIRONMENTAL fEATURE

SAUNDERS

fIELD gUIDE

TO gLADIOLI

Of SOUTH

AfRIcA

REVIEW AND PHOTOgRAPHS
BY cAROL KNOLL

Rod and Rachel Saunders with their
passion for gladiolus, comprising
flowers of fascinating beauty and

diversity, were horticulturists,
photographers, collectors and
researchers hunting for every possible
gladiolus of South Africa. They also
ran a rare seed and bulb business in

Cape Town. They left the world an
extraordinary legacy after their tragic
deaths. Fiona C Rose compiled their

extensive archive of botantical writings
and photographs in conjuction with
other renowned scientists.

he scientific genus Gladiolus
is commonly known as a
TSword Lily and over the
years since C1600 they earned
an extraordinary reputation
worldwide, with selection and
hybridisation making them the
most renowned of the ‘garden
gladiolus’ in the floricultural
trade. Hybridisation enhances
colours, patterns and changes
Gladiolus serceovillosus near Dullstroom, shapes. Gladiolus is cultivated on
Mpumalanga, grows naturally, mostly in the a large scale worldwide . In the
full sun of grasslands. Milky flowers in a two- wild, the bulb grows in different
ranked spike, speckled in maroon or other habitats, montane and short
pastel colours and a yellow nectar guide. grassland, forest edges, crags
and rocky outcrops...and even in
splashing waterfalls.

22 Landscape SA • Issue 106 2021