Gladiolus saccatus

Gladiolus saccatus, sometimes commonly called the pouch pypie and in Afrikaans the Roggeveld suikerkannetjie (small sugar jar) or suikerkannetjie, is a cormous perennial growing annual leaves and flowers to heights from 40 cm to 65 cm in height. The corm is globose to conical, covered in firm papery tunics that fragment in irregularly shaped pieces. The corms do not accumulate but bear large cormlets on short stolons.

The distribution of G. saccatus is mainly in the Northern Cape from the west coast to Upington in the east extending southwards into the northwest of the Western Cape and northwards to a large part of Namibia, as far north as Grootfontein.

This region is mainly characterised by low to medium winter rainfall apart from the easterly  extreme where summer rainfall is received. The plants grow among the Namaqualand hills, often in seasonally moist rocky places. The flowers form part of the annual Namaqualand flower display. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; Goldblatt, et al, 1998; iNaturalist; www.pacificbulbsociety.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).