Compilation
Gladiolus dehnianus

Plants 35–100 cm high. Corms 2.5–3 cm in diameter, globose; tunics coriaceus, decaying into vertical fibrous strips. Foliage leaves 5–7, mostly basal, exceeding the spike sometimes by up to twice its length, 3–6(8) mm wide, linear (narrowly lanceolate in South Africa), usually (microscopically) pubescent on the sheaths and often sparsely so on the lower parts of the leaves, the margins and midrib and sometimes the other veins moderately to strongly thickened and hyaline; the upper 1–2 leaves cauline and much shorter than the basal. Stem rarely branched. Spike distichous, erect, 12–20(40)-flowered; bracts pale-green and soft-textured, becoming membranous or dry and pale above, 15–30 mm long, the outer acute-attenuate, usually slightly longer (or shorter) than the inner, the inner forked apically, the margins united around the flower. Flowers pale grey-green to cream-coloured, the tepals densely speckled with minute dark-red to maroon points, these often concentrated in the midline of each tepal, the lower lateral (and sometimes the lowermost) tepals yellow-green in the lower half (tepals sometimes uniformly cream with green markings on the lower tepals in South Africa); perianth tube (6)10–12 mm long, obliquely infundibuliform, widening and curving outwards near the apex, extended between the bracts; tepals unequal, the uppermost (18)20–22 mm long (often less when dry), longer than the others and hooded over the stamens, the lower 3 tepals c. 12 mm long, curving toward the ground, narrowed somewhat below but not abruptly expanded into limbs above. Filaments 10–12 mm long, exserted 6–8 mm; anthers 8–10 mm long. Style dividing near anther apices, style branches 4–5 mm long. Capsules c. 12 mm long, obovoid, usually somewhat trilobed above.