Revisiting Canna 'Rubra Perfecta'

A medium sized Foliage Group cultivar; dark green and red variegated foliage, ovoid shaped, maroon margin, branching habit; spikes of flowers are erect, self-coloured orange-red, staminodes are long and narrow, labellum is orange-red, stamen is orange-red, style is red, fully self-cleaning, good bloomer; fertile both ways, not true to type, self-pollinating, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 7 cm in diameter, coloured purple; tillering is prolific.

Introduced by Théodore Année, Passy, France, EU in 1861.

Wot! no rhizomes?

All botanical descriptions of the Canna genus contain a reference, such as the following one quoted from the Wikipedia,

"The plants are large tropical and subtropical perennial herbs with a rhizomatous rootstock."

Please note the reference to rhizomes. One hundred and fifty years ago, Canna musaefolia was recognised as a Canna species. It was described by Monsieur E. Chaté, the author of the worlds first book devoted to Cannas, in the following manner.

"This species was formerly described in the English, Dutch, and German horticultural journals under the name of C. excelsa. It was named C. musæfolia by Monsieur Théodore Année, who introduced it into France in 1858, from the resemblance of its leaves to those of the Musa or banana-tree. It reaches a height of more than 8 ft. and has green, downy stems, and very large, oval, green leaves. Flowers small, orange-yellow. It is a tender species without rhizomes, and requires to be kept constantly growing. Peru."

The point of the quote being that there were no rhizomes. Canna excelsa (and by implication C. muaefolia) is accepted as a synonym of C. paniculata. However, all known Cannas have rhizomes or tubers. So, you can imagine our surprise when potting up a C. paniculata, started from seed this year, to discover that it was totally without rhizomes. I first thought this was some sort of freak, perhaps caused by the extreme weather we have *enjoyed* this year. The seed came from a reliable source, originating in Peru.

We now hear from Dale McDonnel in her excellent article The effects of drought on Cannas, 19 November 2007 on this blog, that she is also the custodian of such a Canna freak. Dale obtained her specimen from the old Bendigo Canna Collection. It long ago lost its identity and is either another of the very early French hybrids or a species Canna. Dale nicknamed it "The Bendigo Banana" because of its close resemblance to a Musa. It has never flowered for her and cannot be identified until it does. The foliage is a pale, lettuce green, poised on long, arching pedicels. The long leaves, have prominent, close veins, undulate margins and fold downwards. In windy weather these split and look just like Musa foliage. It does not tiller like other cannas. Each leaf stalk arises from an individual small conical knob.

In his book, Le Canna, Monsieur Chaté also described two hybrids that Monsieur Année had raised, based on C. musaefolia. The first was C. 'Musaefolia Minima' , which he described as

"Leaves of a whitish green, badly set. Flowers small, orange brown. No rootstocks. Introduced by Théodore Année, Passy, France, EU in 1860."

The second was C. 'Musaefolia Perfecta', which he described in the following terms

"Stems from 5 ft. to 6½ ft. high. Leaves broad, very firm, of a handsomish whiteish green. Flowers small, yellow. Roots fiberous, without rootstocks. Introduced by Théodore Année, Passy, France, EU in 1862."

It is too early to draw any conclusions, but it would appear that Dale has a specimen which is either the original species, or one of the two hybrids. Until it flowers, we will not know. All three possibilities have different flowers, so it should be possible to put a name to it then. In the meantime we are trying to keep our specimen alive and growing over the winter.

Based on Monsieur Chaté's descriptions we can speculate that what many gardeners call Canna 'Musaefolia' is, in fact, one of the five hybrids raised by Monsieur Année. Two of them are described above and have no rhizomes, so that leaves three known possibilities, C. 'Musaefolia Hybrida', C. 'Musaefolia Peruviana' or C. 'Musaefolia Rubra'. They may, of course, be an example of C. 'Musaefolia Grande', introduced by Herb Kelly from Venezuela in 1989.

Finally, we must not forget that there may have been subsequent cultivars raised in the interim period since Monsieur Chaté authored his classical canna book in 1867, however, all focus was switched to the floriferous Crozy Group from that time onwards. We have been lucky enough to acquire the three separate Musaefolia cultivars with rhizomes, all named. They were not spelled correctly, but hey, after 150 years that is not a big deal.

Musaefolia Peruviana, genetic volcano!

It has long been asserted by the Royal Horticultural Society that C. 'Musaefolia' does not flower in the United Kingdom. This caused us some consternation, as two of the three types in our collection do give flowers very late in the season and also give seed. However, the largest and most majestic, which we now know is C. 'Musaefolia Peruviana' Année, had never flowered for us. It is obviously that variety of the Musaefolia's that the RHS were referring to when they passed that comment.

Well, the combination of the RHS assertion, our own observations and a quest for adventure and danger was enough to stir us into accepting the challenge, plus the extra electric bills over the whole winter! So, three years ago we kept the plant growing over the winter and in May and June of the following year it flowered for us outdoors.

The flowers were a revelation, being orange instead of the red colour we had been led to expect, and they also provided us with some interesting sights. Unfortunately, being May, there were no other Canna flowers to try and pollinate, and although self-pollinating, we had no seed from the flowers.

But most amazing was the genetic volcano that was revealed. Two of the three flowers had an extra staminode, see middle photo, and one of them also had two anthers, one on either side of the stamen so that they did not interfere with each other. The photograph above shows another flower with two separate stamens, each equipped with a single anther. That photograph was taken using flashlight, so the colour on that photograph has been corrupted.

To summarise, we enjoyed the following variations:

1. Four staminodes, one labellum, one stamen, one anther, one style.
2. Three staminodes, one labellum, one stamen, two anthers, one style.
3. Three staminodes, one labellum, two stamens, each with its own anther, one style.

Contrast that to the normal canna cultivar, where we have 3 staminodes, 1 labellum, 1 stamen, 1 anther and 1 style. As the style is connected via the tube to the ovaries it unlikely that we would ever see two styles, but I suppose that even that variation might be possible.

The variations are of significance to hybridisers, as it would be interesting to cross this Foliage Group cultivar with our modern day Crozy Group cultivars and attempt to introduce extra staminodes into our current garden varieties.

Red foliage cannas

I was always under the impression that early canna cultivars had green foliage, and much later crosses introduced the dark foliage; a feature that so many love in Cannas. However, my reading has revealed that cannas with red foliage have been in evidence since the early 1800's. Rubra is the Latin word for red, and we have several interesting cannas in our collection that carry that name.

The first is a species called Canna rubra (Willd.). Johnson's Dictionary of 1856 describes it has having "Red flowers indoors in December, originating from the West Indies and first introduced to England in 1820." Modern taxonomists have treated Canna rubra as being a synonym for Canna indica, and at least one authority feels that it was probably a duplication of Canna indica var. indica Warscewiczii. That same species was used by Monsieur Crozy in his development of the floriferous Crozy Group of cannas.

The earlier reference to flowering in December was due to the fact that in those days, in England, Cannas were grown indoors in glass buildings, with heat provided by coal heated stoves, hence the name given to Cannas, and other expensive tender imports, at that time of stove plants. Cannas were considered to be too tender to grow outdoors at all, and only people with wealth could consider growing them.

Rather than using glass houses, Monsieur Théodore Année and the other French hybridisers quickly adapted the technique of lifting and storing rhizomes in the winter months and growing out again next spring, once the threat of frost had receded. The rhizomes descended from Canna indica and C. glauca proved to be amenable to that process, and so we remain today. That technique is now used by most Canna growers resident in temperate zones. As we all know, Canna 'Annei; was the first canna cultivar, but Monsieur Année went on to produce many more cultivars, amongst them were some with dark foliage.

We have early records of three Foliage Group cultivars raised in the mid 1800's, the first was Canna 'Rubra Perfecta', (perfect red) raised by Théodore Année, Passy, France, EU in 1861. In Subtropical Gardening, Robinson 1868, it was described as having stems dark-red, from 5 ft. to 6½ ft. high. Leaves dark-red, rayed with purple. The flowers are of medium size, orange-red. Rootstocks are dark-red, and conical. It seeds freely.

Canna 'Rubra Superbissima' (superb red) was another new cultivar from Monsieur Année, also in 1861, and Robinson described it as having stems dark purple-red, very thick, from nearly 6 ft. to 6½ ft. high. It’s leaves are broad, round, purplish-red, with a metallic lustre. Flowers of medium size, light orange-red. The rootstocks are brownish, very thick, conical, and crowded together. It was stated to be one of the finest metallic-red-leaved Cannas. In addition, Thompson's Gardener's Assistant, edited by Thomas Moore, 1892, described it as being 5 to 6 feet in height; leaves very broad, of a rich purplish red colour, with a metallic lustre in the sun. This is a free grower, and one of the best of the red-leaved kinds. At that time in canna history the floriferous cultivars from Monsieur Crozy were the fashionable rage, so the mention is all the more remarkable as Moore obviously felt that this was an outstanding specimen.

Finally, Canna 'Rubra Nerva', (red ribbed) was raised by E. Chaté and sons, sentier Saint-Antoine, Saint-Mandé, Paris, France, EU. in 1862. It was described by Robinson as having stems dark-red, from 3½ ft. to 5 ft. high. Leaves long and narrow, lance-shaped, reflexed, dark-red rayed with purple. It had large flowers, of a cinnabar red. The rootstocks are dark-red, very long, conical, and cylindrical. Robinson went on to say that this cultivar resembles a weeping willow.

This strongly resembles our own cultivar, C. 'Russian Lance' (left), which was a seedling from C. 'Russian Red'. We are growing C. 'Russian Red' next to C. 'Rubra Superbissima' for comparison this year, as there seems to be no difference between them. We also intend to supply a specimen of the latter to the National Canna Collection, so that Keith and Christine Hayward can make a judgement as well.

References:

1. Le Canna - E. Chaté et fils, 1867
2. Subtropical Gardening - Robinson 1868
3. Thompson's Gardener's Assistant, Edited by Thomas Moore, 1892