Compilation
Gladiolus longanus

Plants 35–60 cm high. Corms dark-red, c. 10 mm in diameter, globose to horizontally elongate, often rhizome-like, 15–25 mm long, the old Corms sometimes persistent and then attached horizontally; tunics reddish-brown, membranous, fragmenting irregularly. Foliage leaves 4–6, the basal longer than the others, usually with blades well-developed and reaching to about the base of the spike, 5–9 mm wide, narrowly lanceolate, glabrous to pubescent, sometimes with a dense appressed short pubescence, the margins and midribs moderately to heavily thickened and hyaline, sometimes other veins also somewhat thickened; the upper 1–2 cauline leaves usually entirely sheathing. Stem unbranched, erect. Spike (3)5–8-flowered, erect; bracts green, (20)25–30 mm long, often somewhat attenuate and dry apically, the inner about two-thirds as long as the outer. Flowers either scarlet-red with the lower tepals each with a median white stripe, or occasionally entirely yellow; perianth tube c. 15 mm long, expanding uniformly from base to apex, curving outward in the upper half; tepals unequal, the uppermost 18–21 × c. 12 mm, larger than the others and ascending to nearly horizontal, the upper lateral tepals c. 20 mm long, the lower 3 tepals 16–18 × c. 6 mm, more or less straight and held at 45° to the ground. Filaments 5–8 mm long, included or barely exserted; anthers 7–8 mm long. Style dividing opposite the upper half of the anthers, style branches 3–4 mm long. Capsules (14)16–18(22) mm long, narrowly obovoid to ellipsoid.