White splotches on Gladiola flowers

Can anybody ID the problem with these flowers? Are they supposed to look like this? They grow by the side of the house receiving basically no care. Nothing has splashed on them. Virus?

They look like Watsonia flowers http://images.google.com/images?q=watsonia&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=safari&rls=en-us&sa=N&tab=wi

Either way, it could be a viral infection or other pest damage at bud stage, flower problems can be quite hard to identify as even rain could be the cause of such a discolouration. Did you notice anything when they were buds?

Watsonia - how interesting. I had never heard of it. We just moved into this property and are now watching various mystery plants come up. I had thought that the branched flower spikes and bloom time were unusual for a gladiola. I didn't see any pests on the buds or other abnormalities but, water may be an issue. The week before the first flowers opened, we had a massive amount of rain. The next week, several plants had good crops of different fungal pests. I have noticed subsequent blooms have been a solid color with no white splotches. I also need to stake these next year as they are floppy. Thanks so much for your input Baa.

I marked this thread 'cause I was interested in what could have caused flower damage on some of my glads and DL. Rain makes sense, about a week before some buds started opening, we had 3" of rain in a couple of hours. I've been diligent w/ neem oil so didn't think it was pest damage.

It does make for some interesting patterns!

This kind of water damage is often caused by the heavy rainfalls followed by either a cold snap while the water droplets are still present on the buds or flowers (effectively chilling the petals) or if sun follows and the rays are concentrated by the water droplets onto the petals.