Canna glauca L.

• Title

  Canna glauca L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Canna glauca L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Canna glauca Maraca Yellow Indian shot Family Cannaceae Canna Family Canna glauca Linnaeus, Species Plantarurn 1. 1753. Frequent in marshes and ditches in Porto Rico, and widely distributed in tropical America, this Canna differs from the 3 other species in our flora, by having pale, glaucous stems and leaves, and yellow flowers, attractive but by no means as elegant as those of many kinds cultivated for ornament. Canna (Latin, a cane, or reed) a genus established by Linnaeus, and has the distinction of appearing on the first page of his several works on the classification of plants, the flowers having only 1 perfect stamen (Linnaean Class Monandria). Some 50 species are described, natives of tropical and subtropical regions. They are upright, perennial herbs, with endogenous stems, untoothed, pinnately-veined leaves, the lower ones stalked, and irregular, showy flowers in long terminal, bracted clusters. The calyx consists of 3, upright, persistent sepals, the corolla of 3, partly united petals; there is a staminal tube, united below with the corolla-tube, with unequal, petal-like segments (staminodes), one of them bearing an anther on its margin; the 3-celled ovary contains many ovules, and the style is flattened. The fruit is a large, papillose, or bristly capsule, splitting when ripe, and releasing the globose seeds. Canna glauca (glaucous, covered with a bloom) is from 1 to 2 meters high, the stem bearing several rather broadly lance-shaped, long-pointed leaves from 35 to 50 centimeters long, and from 8 to 15 centimeters wide at the middle, tapering to the base. The flowers are several, or many, in long, sometimes forked clusters; the lance-shaped sepals are about 1.5 centimeters long; the tube of the greenish-yellow corolla is from 1.5 to 2 centimeters long, its narrow upright segments 4 or 4.5 centimeters long; the 3, upper, pale yellow staminodes are 6 or 7 centimeters long, 1.5 to 2 centimeters wide; the oblong-obovate, pale yellow lip is notched. The fruit is an ellipsoid capsule, from 3.5 to 4.5 centimeters long, and short-bristly. Another species, Canna coccinea, with red flowers, is also illustrated in this work.