The Apostrophe Blog
We could all use a shot of delight and beauty right about now, early September in this year of ascendant authoritarianism 2025. So I present a truly glorious, curious flower, G. callianthus, the Abyssinian gladiolus first discovered and cultivated in 1888, the years when Reconstruction had been decisively defeated and abandoned after the U.S. Civil War.
Here is more from the catalog of Old House Gardens in Ann Arbor, Michigian, the folks who cultivate this amazing flower — “A fragrant glad? Yes! And it’s so graceful and different that even glad-haters love it. Its exotic, late-blooming, ivory flowers with purple hearts dip and sway on sturdy, arching stems. Collected from the mountains of Ethiopia in 1844, it reached America by 1888 when it was featured as brand new in Garden and Forest magazine. Formerly Acidanthera, now Gladiolus callianthus ‘Murielae’, 3-4 feet, from Holland.”
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
- Acceptance News: American Writers Review - September 3, 2025
- Abyssinian gladiolus in late summer bloom… - September 2, 2025
- The Summer of Our Discontent - August 27, 2025
