Why are canna flowers so unusual?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
September 26, 2002
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Killer Picks: Louis Cotton Dwarf Canna, Cleopatra Canna—>Click here.
The garden canna has a confused parentage. There are fifty to sixty species (depending upon the authority) found in the tropics and subtropics of Asia and the Americas. Prized for the dramatic foliage and odd flowers, Canna have been grown, accidentally and intentionally hybridized, and traded between Western gardeners for more than four hundred years.
When John Gerard wrote The Herbal in 1597, he mentioned the Flowring or Flourishing Reed as a popular garden plant in Italy and "...many other places of those hot regions." Canna were new to Europe for Gerard states, "There is not any thing set downe...of this Flourishing Reed, either of the Ancients, or of the new or later Writers."
The hundreds of hybrid cannas are generally lumped into two horticultural designations, Canna X generalis (garden canna) and Canna X orchiodes (orchid-flowered canna). The distinctions between the various hybrids were determined by Liberty Hyde Bailey of
Cornell University in the early 1900s. (Hortus Third, Cornell University, 1976)
The garden cannas are the oldest hybrids, descendents of cannas hybridized in Europe (example: City of Portland). The orchid-flowered cannas are apparently descendents of Canna flaccida of the southeastern U.S. (example: Roi (King) Humbert). Bailey's designations are blurred in later hybrids between the two types.
Canna flowers are not what they appear to be. The three sepals and three petals are seldom noticed, they are small and hidden under extravagant stamens. What appear to be petals are the highly modified stamens or staminodes. Only one of the staminodes bears pollen from a half of an anther. A fourth, somewhat narrower, 'petal' is the pistil connected to a three-chambered ovary. Although gardeners enjoy these odd flowers, nature really intended them to attract hummingbirds and bats.
Series: | 1 | 2 |
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading:
What flower has never been found in the wild? Weird Plants - March 21, 2002
What canna is edible? Weird Plants - September 19, 2002
How did Native Americans use waterlilies? Herbal Folklore - June 30, 2003
Why does the Amazon Water Lily imprison its pollinators? Renfield's Garden - August 22, 2001
What is sorcerer's garlic? Herbal Folklore - March 4, 2002
Killer Savings Links:
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Gurney's Seed and Nursery -$20 off—>Click here.
Henry Fields Seed and Nursery -$20 off—>Click here.
Spring Hill Nursery -$20 off—>Click here.
Gardens Alive! -$20 off—>Click here.
Michigan Bulb -$20 off—>Click here.
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