Canna 'Madeira'

Photoghraph courtesy of Malcolm McFarland

A medium sized cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, white margin, branching habit; spikes of flowers are open, red with a narrow gold margin, staminodes are medium size, fully self-cleaning, good bloomer; fertile both ways, not self-pollinating or true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured white and purple; tillering is prolific.

One of the Island Series, in total there are: C. 'Corsica', C. 'Gran Canaria', C. 'Kreta', and C. 'Madeira'. It is said that they were originally propagated as meristem cultures and distributed as small plugs, but apparently Canna does not lend itself easily to that form of culture and they have been removed from widespread commercial production.

What confuses me is that in his Canna book Ian Cooke refers to this specimen as being deep pinkish red, but the ones being sold nowadays are a bold red. I have heard it mooted that the Island series was a marketing exercise and consists of many of the older varieties from years gone by. Certainly, C. 'Maderia' bears a strong resemblance to C. 'Madame Crozy', which we were fortunate enough to acquire some years ago.

Canna 'Gran Canaria'

A medium sized Crozy Group cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, branching habit; triangular stems, coloured green; spikes of flowers are open, self-coloured pale yellow, staminodes are medium size, edges regular, petals yellow, fully self-cleaning; fertile both ways, not self-pollinating or true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured white; tillering is slow.

One of the Island Series, in total there are: C. 'Corsica', C. 'Gran Canaria', C. 'Kreta', and C. 'Madeira'. They were originally propagated as meristem cultures and distributed as small plugs, but apparently Canna does not lend itself easily to that form of culture and they have been removed from widespread commercial production.

Canna 'Gran Canaria'

A medium sized Crozy Group cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, branching habit; triangular stems, coloured green; spikes of flowers are open, self-coloured pale yellow, staminodes are medium size, edges regular, petals yellow, fully self-cleaning; fertile both ways, not self-pollinating or true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured white; tillering is slow.

One of the Island Series, in total there are: C. 'Corsica', C. 'Gran Canaria', C. 'Kreta', and C. 'Madeira'. They were originally propagated as meristem cultures and distributed as small plugs, but apparently Canna does not lend itself easily to that form of culture and they have been removed from widespread commercial production.

Visiting MV Canna

A nautical flavour to the blog today describing how MV Canna was the penultimate Island Class ferry to be built to ferry traffic between the Scottish Islands.

She was launched on 31st October 1975, and entered service at the end of January the following year on the Portree - Raasay route.

Over the intervening years Canna has been used on most of the inter-island routes and in the late 1990's took over the Rathlin ferry service.

To this day the CANNA has been the regular Rathlin ferry on the 45 minute sailing and curiously enough she is the only ferry in the fleet that is scheduled to make a sailing on Christmas Day each year, giving one return sailing from Rathlin and back

Canna is still in service, however from 1st July this year, she left the CMAL fleet when new operators took over the route and she was chartered to the O'Driscoll's company.

So, the question is - does this vessel belong in the Island Series of Canna?