Gladiolus scullyi

Gladiolus scullyi, commonly known as indokwe, sometimes as the skull glad and in Afrikaans as the kalkoentjie (little turkey) or the patryspypie (little partridge tube), is a cormous perennial reaching heights from 15 cm to 60 cm. 

The flowers are not usually spectacularly coloured. In this photo the yellow-green and purple on the lower tepals suggest that a higher opinion of their appearance is in order.

The species distribution is in the Northern Cape from the Calvinia district and Nieuwoudtville through Namaqualand to the Western Cape in the western Karoo and the Koue Bokkeveld.

The habitat is arid karoid vegetation in shale, granitic, clay or sandy slopes, north of the high rainfall area but still in winter rainfall land. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

The related species of G. venustus shares a transitional area with G. scullyi near Nieuwoudtville, where some plants are hard to place in either category. Evolution presents grey areas where distinctions are continuous, rather than discrete. Life is about becoming, as well as about being, more so across generations (Goldblatt and Manning, 1998; Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).