File:Canna x generalis (346586307).jpg

Common name: Canna Lily, Indian Shot, {Keli केली, Sarvajjaya सर्वज्जय} (Hindi), Laphoorit (Manipuri), Sarbajaya (Bengali), Kardal कर्दळ (Marathi), Kele Phool केंळें फुल (Konkani)

Botanical name: Canna x generalis (syn. Canna x orchiodes) - [ (KAN-uh) derived from a Greek name for a type of reed; (x = Hybrid) (jen-er-RAY-liss) meaning prevailing or normal ] Family: Cannaceae (canna family) - [ (kan-AY-see-ay) the canna family ]

Origin: Tropical America, Caribbean

In recent years many new cultivars have been created, but the genus suffers from having many synonyms for many popular ones. Most of the synonyms were created by plant growers attempting to market their stock. Research has accumulated over 2,300 cultivar names, however, many of these are simply synonyms.

The first hybridisation of Cannas was performed in 1848 by a gentleman gardener, Monsieur Théodore Année of Passy, France. He was rapidly joined by many other enthusiasts and professional horticulturalists as Canna hybrids enjoyed rapid popularity in France. Amongst the professionals was the rose breeder Monsieur Pierre-Antoine-Marie Crozy (1831-1903) of Avoux & Crozy, La Guillotière, Lyon, France, who first started hybridising Cannas in 1862 and continued introducing new canna cultivars at a rapid rate until his death in 1903, giving his name to a whole new group of floriferous Canna cultivars. Crozy aîné (French for "elder"), as he was universally known, was succeeded by his son, Michel Crozy (1871-1908).

In the early 1900's, Professor Liberty Hyde Bailey defined, in detail, two garden species (C. x generalis and C. x orchiodes) to categorise the floriferous Cannas being grown at that time, namely the Crozy hybrids and the ‘orchid-like’ hybrids introduced by Carl Ludwig Sprenger in Italy and Luther Burbank in the USA, at about the same time (1894). The definition was based on the genotype, rather than the phenotype, of the two cultivar groups. Inevitably, over time those two floriferous groups were interbred, the distinctions became blurred and overlapped, and the Bailey species names became redundant. Pseudo-species names are now deprecated by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants which, instead, provides Cultivar Groups for categorising cultivars.

Courtesy: - Flowers of India - Flowers of India - TopTropicals - Dave's Garden Botanary - Zipcode Zoo - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia