CANNA SPECIES

The term "species" refers to those types of plants found naturally occurring in the wild.  When new types of plants have been bred by people, then these types are referred to as "Cultivars" or "Varieties".  

The study and classification of wild plants is known as "Taxonomy".   The taxonomy of cannas is in a somewhat unsatisfactory state.  This is because many plants found growing in the wild have been wrongly named in years gone by.  Some species are actually varieties that have been bred or cultivated by mankind and escaped into the wild, and many truly wild growing cannas have been given duplicate names by botanists.  Also, many are wrongly named in books and catalogues.   Therefore, many cannas that are described or sold as species are not species, and many cannas that have been given a species name have another name that should be the correct name.  To put this in context, there are only 19 cannas that have been identified as truly species, but there are several hundred that have been named in the historical botanical and horticultural literature and catalogues.

There have been 2 recent revisions of the genus Canna by botanists in recent years, firsly by Maas (in the Netherlands), and secondly by Tanaka (in Japan).   The taxonomy presented below is based on the Tanaka revision. Even Tanaka states that his work leaves some unanswered questions, that is, there are some types of cannas growing in the wild that he did not have enough information on to decide whether or not they were a valid species.

A full list of canna species according to Tanaka is listed below:

C. amabilis
C. bangii
C. coccinea
C. compacta
C. discolor
C. flaccida
C. glauca
C. indica
    subspecies:
    C. indica flava
    C. indica maculata
    C. indica warscewiczii
    C. indica sanctae-rosea
C. iridiflora
C. jacobiniflora
C. jaegeriana
C. latifolia
C. liliiflora
C. paniculata
C. patens
C. pedunculata
C. plurituberosa
C. speciosa
C. stenantha

Notes:
Maas prefers the name C. tuerckheimii to C. latifolia
Tanaka was unable to decide whether C. altensteinii is a species or not, because he didn't have source material to work on.

Please note that many cannas sold under these names, or held under these names, may well be incorrectly named.   A project for canna enthusiasts, such as us, it to determine the correct identification of species in garden cultivation.

Please also note the correct botanical terminology and spelling:
When used in the botanical name, the genus, canna, begins with a capital letter, ie Canna, which may be abbreviated to C (as shown above).
The species name always begins with lower case.

Some canna species make good garden plants.