Canna normally grows wild in the forests and mountains. Sometimes also used as an ornamental plant in the yard or in the parks. Canna flowers are from tropical America and can be found from the lowlands to an altitude of 1000 m above sea level.
These flowers will thrive in the open or slightly shielded from the sun. This annual plant grows upright to reach two meters high, has a thick rhizome like tubers. Canna flowers have a single leaf with an oval shape elongated, short-stemmed into stem, tapered tip and base, pinnate clear.
Canna flowers also have bright colors like red, yellow, and dice. Fruits are like boxes, spherical shape, rough fruit wall, seed 3-5, round, hard.
Canna flowers are not only have the beauty of its petals, but also have a lush variety of cheerful colors.
Canna flowers plant can also be used as a drug, for example can be used as a reliever fever, urinary laxative, sedative, and lowers blood pressure (hypotensive).
Canna flowers have large, attractive foliage and horticulturists have turned it into a large-flowered and bright garden plant. In addition, it is one of the world's richest starch sources, and is an agricultural plant.
Although a plant 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 can enjoy at least 6–8 hours average sunlight during the summer.
The name Canna originates from the Celtic word for a cane or reed. The plants are large tropical and subtropical perennial herbs with a rhizomatous rootstock.
The broad, flat, alternate leaves, that are such a feature of this plant, grow out of a stem in a long narrow roll and then unfurl.
The leaves are typically solid green but some cultivars have glaucose, brownish, maroon, or even variegated leaves.
The flowers are typically red, orange, or yellow or any combination of those colours, and are aggregated in inflorescences that are spikes or panicles (thyrses).
Although gardeners enjoy these odd flowers, nature really intended them to attract pollinators collecting nectar and pollen, such as bees, hummingbirds and bats. The pollination mechanism is conspicuously specialized.
Pollen is shed on the style while still in the bud, and in the species and early hybrids some is also found on the stigma because of the high position of the anther, which means that they are self-pollinating.
Later cultivars have a lower anther, and rely on pollinators alighting on the labellum and touching first the terminal stigma, and then the pollen.
