Canna (plant) - Origins

Origins

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 indicates this origin, and states that it was given the name of 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, Pison 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. Canna is an American genus, as pointed out by Lamarck where he argues that "Cannas were unknown to the ancients, and that it is only after the discovery of the New World, that they made their appearance in Europe". Since cannas have very hard and durable seed coverings, it is likely that seed remains would have survived in the right conditions and been found by archaeologists in the Old World. If the soils of India or Africa had produced some of them, they would have been imported before the 1860s into European gardens.