Monday 14 July 2008

Q&A Why so many Cannas the same?

Question.
Why do some Cannas that look the same have different names?

Answer.
In the absence of a Canna Society or registry for hybridizers, many Canna cultivars have been claimed, renamed, and even patented by nurseries or companies that had nothing to do with developing that cultivar.

Some Canna are also very generous with producing "sports,"which are mutations that can be propagated and sold as a new variety. The classic example is Canna 'Yellow King Humbert', which has produced many new all purple foliage plants with red flowers. The same sport may occur spontaneously at different nurseries and each might claim it as a new introduction and give it their own name. This causes a lot of confusion for Canna enthusiasts!

At Claines Canna we try to list the common alias for each variety in the description.

1 comment:

  1. One major problem is the unwillingness of many nursery men & women (very well respected ones included) to allow change of the many wrongly named cultivars, if these people are not prepared to do it then any hope is lost, the general public are none the wiser and accept the names given to these cultivars (this or that variety came from this Canna grower /breeder it must be right)!

    With these unfortunate attitudes (I am being polite here) this problem will always exist, which is a real shame.....

    ReplyDelete