page_title: Canna (plant)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Canna (plant) / Taxonomy / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Canna Crozy Group 'Albèric', Pfitzer 1949
context_page_description: Canna or canna lily is the only genus of flowering plants in the family Cannaceae, consisting of 10 species. Cannas are not true lilies, but have been assigned by the APG II system of 2003 to the order Zingiberales in the monocot clade Commelinids, together with their closest relatives, the gingers, spiral gingers, bananas, arrowroots, heliconias and birds of paradise.
  The plants have large foliage and horticulturists have developed selected forms as large-flowered garden plants. Cannas are also used in agriculture as a rich source of starch for human and animal consumption.
  Although plants of the tropics, most cultivars have been developed in temperate climates and are easy to grow in most countries of the world as long as they receive at least 6–8 hours average sunlight during the summer, and are moved to a warm location for the winter. See the Canna cultivar gallery for photographs of Canna cultivars.
  The name Canna originates from the Latin word for a 'cane' or 'reed'.
context_section_description: Canna indica, commonly called achira in Latin America, has been cultivated by Native Americans in tropical America for thousands of years and was one of the earliest domesticated plants in the Americas.  The starchy root is edible.
  The first species of Canna introduced to Europe was C. indica L., which was imported from the East Indies, though the species originated from the Americas. Charles de l'Ecluse, who first described and sketched C. indica, indicated this origin, and stated that it was given the name indica, not because the plant is from India, in Asia, but because this species was originally transported from America: Quia ex America primum delata sit; and at that time, one described the tropical areas of that part of the globe as the Western Indies.
  Much later, in 1658, Willem Piso made reference to another species which he documented under the vulgar or common name of 'Albara' and 'Pacivira', which resided, he said, in the 'shaded and damp places, between the tropics'; this species is Canna angustifolia L. (later reclassified as C. glauca L. by taxonomists).
  Without exception, all Canna species that have been introduced into Europe can be traced back to the Americas, and it can be asserted with confidence that Canna is solely an American genus. If Asia and Africa provided some of the early introductions, they were only varieties resulting from C. indica and C. glauca cultivars that have been grown for a long time in India and Africa, with both species imported from Central and South America. Since cannas have very hard and durable seed coverings, it is likely that seed remains would survive in the right conditions and been found by archaeologists in the Old World if Canna had been grown there from antiquity. If the soils of India or Africa had produced some of them, they would have been imported before the 1860s into European gardens.
caption: Canna (Crozy Group) 'Alberich', Pfitzer 1949
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