Description
Gladiolus papilio is a South African species considered to be the hardiest one for outside, garden, cultivation in the UK.
It has narrow, grey-green foliage some 50-60 cm long borne with the flowers which are made, in quantity in late summer and early autumn. The flowers always attract attention and are white, through cream and pale yellow, shaded outside with a flush of purple-maroon and marked, on the lip with a superbly contrasting eye of deep dark maroon set around a gold centre. It is this mark that gives the epithet ‘papilio‘ (butterfly) to the plant and also the trivial name of “Goldblotch Gladiolus”. Navy blue anthers complete the picture.
This thrives in a warm, sunny, well-drained position but will also tolerate damp positions if your garden is sheltered. It increases freely, flowers reliably and is hardy certainly to -12°C and perhaps below if it is well drained.
Increase is by stolons and the new corms formed annually will reach flowering size within a season, if it is grown well.
Named by Joseph Hooker in 1866, introduced to our lists in 2013.
Picture from Wikipedia, copyright Dick Culbert used under CC-A 2.0 license