Canna 'The President'

A medium sized Premier Group cultivar; green foliage, large, oval shaped, spreading habit; oval stems, coloured green + purple; panicles of flowers are open, self-coloured scarlet (RHS 44A), staminodes are large, edges regular, fully self-cleaning, average bloomer; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured pink and purple; tillering is average.

Introduced by Antoine Wintzer of The Conard & Jones Co., West Grove, PA, USA in 1920. Earliest reference is USA in 1923.

Synonyms: C. 'Fireside', C. 'L’Aiglon', C. 'President', C. 'Red Spiritiae'

Canna 'The President'

A medium sized Premier Group cultivar; green foliage, large, oval shaped, spreading habit; oval stems, coloured green + purple; panicles of flowers are open, self-coloured scarlet (RHS 44A), staminodes are large, edges regular, fully self-cleaning, average bloomer; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured pink and purple; tillering is average.

Introduced by Antoine Wintzer of The Conard & Jones Co., West Grove, PA, USA in 1920. Earliest reference is USA in 1923.

Synonyms: C. 'Fireside', C. 'L’Aiglon', C. 'President', C. 'Red Spiritiae'

Canna 'President' was 'Oiseau de Feu'

The first rhizome of Canna 'The President' that we purchased at Claines Canna was from a British Garden Catalogue in 2001, accession 15 in our collection. The accompanying documentation stated that it was imported from the USA.

We never queried it's origins and simply grew it for several years before it began to dawn on us that this specimen did not match the descriptions we were reading from others and from the old catalogues we were collecting as we learned more about Cannas.

On the 10 July 2004 we purchased a Canna 'Oiseau de Feu', aka 'Firebird', accession 335. Growing the two alongside each other it became apparent that what we had purchased as C. 'President' was actually C. 'Oiseau de Feu'.

Keith Hayward, of Hart Canna, often states that when you buy pre-packaged Cannas you acquire 3 things:

• a rhizome
• a name
• a picture

And the only thing that you can be sure of is that none of them match!