AN UNFORGETABLE FLOWER

I recently saw this flower (3 feet and 10 inches tall) in my neighbor’s yard and was immediately impressed by the beauty of this very unusual flower. At first glance, it looked like one flower had overgrown a different species of flower. I quickly discovered that it is a single plant (and a single species) of flower. It did not take me long to identify it as being a hybrid of the Canna indica plant, known by several common names: Indian shot, African arrowroot, Sierra Leon arrowroot, etc.).

Figure 1. This flowering plant is a hybrid of Canna indica. This plant grows rapidly. Its flowers can be multi-colored, like the one shown here, or they can be predominantly only a single color (red, orange, or yellow).

[note: The small blue flower in the upper left-hand corner is a completely different flower (please ignore it)].

Figure 2. Canna indica, with a multi-colored flower.

This plant can bloom 10 to 12 weeks after planting. It grows rapidly (two to six inches per week). This plant, which has underground rhizomes, can live for five to 10 years. Reportedly, it blooms from August to October, but in Santa Clarita, Southern California, this flower blooms even in late May. Its fruit consists of red balls that resemble strawberries. Its seeds are black and circular. Its flowers can be red, orange, or yellow, or  in the case of the hybrid shown here, all three colors.

Classification

Kingdom Plantae

Clades (6 of them!)

Order Zingiberales

Family Cannaceae

Genus Canna

Type Species C. indica

Canna indica is a perennial flower native to the Americas (e.g., southern South Carolina, southern Texas. It eventually spread south to South America (Venezuela to Chile and Argentina), as well as the Andes and along the Peruvian coast. 

In modern times, it has been grown in much of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, tropical Africa, China, Madagascar, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Fiji, and Hawai, etc. It has now been a cultivated flower, for thousands of years.  It sum, it thrives in temperate, subtropical, or tropical mountain climates: up to 6,600 feet in elevation. It can survive the winter in pots, by only in a warm or relatively warm climate (USDA Zones 8-10).

This plant evolved in early Cenozoic time, 66 to 40 million years ago: between early Paleocene and late Eocene time (Wikipedia, 2025). Its closest relatives are bananas, birds of paradise plants, gingers, and arrowroots.