Canna 'Roma'

A tall aquatic Italian Group cultivar, equally at home as a water marginal or in the border; green foliage, oval shaped, white margin, upright habit; round stems, coloured green & purple; panicles of flowers are open, yellow with orange blotches, throat red-orange, staminodes are large, edges lightly frilled, stamen is orange-red, petals red, fully self-cleaning, blooms open in the early morning; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are long and thin, coloured white and pink; tillering is prolific.

Introduced by C. Sprenger, Dammann & Co., Naples, Italy, EU in 1898. Synonyms: C. 'Florence Vaughn', C. 'Golden Eagle', C. 'Heinrich Seidel_', C. 'Jennifer', C. 'Orange King Humbert', C. 'Papillon', C. 'Tropicluster'

Canna 'Florence Vaughan'

A medium sized Crozy Group cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, branching habit; oval stems, coloured green; flowers are open, yellow with red spots, staminodes are medium size, edges regular, 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 average.

Introduced by A. Crozy, Lyon, France in 1891. Distributed in the USA by the Vaughan Seed Company.

In the 1990's there was confusion over this heritage cultivar and an Italian Group cultivar with pale yellow background and orange blobs was given this name by over-enthusiastic horticulturalists. The correct name for that particular cultivar was C. 'Roma', see below.

Canna 'Roma'

Synonyms: C. 'Antoine Barton', C. 'Zebra Cole'

Hard to store Cannas

Another vintage catalogue arrives, and Dreer's Catalogue of 1937 has an item that I feel I should share, as it is quite interesting.

The catalogue had a boxed feature called "Two Sensational Cannas". It referred to C. 'Mary Thilow' and C. 'Mrs. Pierre S du Pont'.

The boxed item stated that "These two varieties, owing to the fact that the roots are very difficult to store, will be supplied as growing plants only. These will be ready March 1st."

It has been our experience that the most difficult Cannas to store over the winter are the Aquatic Group. This is worse for the F1 aquatic hybrids like C. 'Ra', and C. 'Wye', but also applies to those F2 hybrids like C. 'Burbank', C. 'Austria', and C. 'Roma'.

I have only read about C. 'Mary Thilow', mentioned above, and it would be interesting to hear from anybody else who has any knowledge of that cultivar in recent times. The description in the Deer's catalogue stated that it has "Bronze foliage and brilliant rosy salmon flowers. 4ft (1.3m)."