Canna 'Trinacria Variegata'

A very old hybrid, Canna 'Trinacria Variegata' is usually described as a medium height semi-drawf but mine seem to grow to 2 metres easily and regularly rival Canna 'Wyoming' in height. Canna 'Trinacria Variegata' has very beautiful sulphur-yellow flowers and variegated leaves. The original unvariegated cultivar was developed by Carl Ludwig Sprenger, probably in the late 1890's or early 1900's, for the Italian nursery Dammann & Co. of which he was a partner. Sprenger used the yellow-flowered North American species, Canna flaccida - native to the Florida Everglades - in its parentage, to give soft distinctly larger blooms. The result is a delicate yet large bloom, with reflexed petals a buttery-sulphur in colour, sometimes with a pale stripe running down the centre of the petal and reddish buds.

The earliest reference to it is from the RHS Journal of 1908-09, after much of the Dammann nursery collection had already been destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius on the 4th April 1906.

The variegated cultivar is thought to have arisen in 1923 during a shipment to what was then Siam from a nursery in California and is first mentioned by Sydney Percy-Lancaster in 1927 in his book, "An Amateur in an Indian Garden". Sydney Percy-Lancaster was by then the Secretary for the Agri-Horticultural Society where the Alipore Canna Collection - started in 1892 by his father, Percy Lancaster - was housed.

The majority - although not all - of the variegated Cannas in cultivation today are derived from mutations of the old Italian hybrids where chromosomes during cell division have done something unpredictable and been reproduced in subsequent cell divisions. These variegations are not manifestations of Canna yellow streak virus, CaYSV, and we regularly check for this in our nursery and always before despatch.

There are several different strains of Canna 'Trinacria Variegata' arising from different nursery sources and there is varying degree of variegation in the leaf. The cultivar offered here is lightly to moderately variegated with a pale yellow variegation running parallel to the veins and grows to about 5-6 feet in height. The pale yellow stripe on the petals is slight or largely absent.

This cultivar has a ludicrously large number of synonyms which include Canna 'Bangkok', Canna 'Bangkok Yellow', Canna 'Bankocki', Canna 'Bankok', Canna 'Striped Beauty', Canna 'Striped Beauty of Bangkok', Canna 'Christ's Light', Canna 'King of Siam', Canna 'Minerva', Canna 'Trinervia Nirvana Variegata', Canna 'Nirvana', Canna variegata 'Nirvana', Canna 'Variegata', Canna 'Variegated', Canna 'Zebra Stripe'.

In the US it is usually refered to as Canna 'Minerva' or Canna 'Striped Beauty'. Here in the UK it is often sold as Canna 'Nirvana', Canna 'Trinervia Nirvana' or Canna 'Trinervia Nirvana Variegata'.

In naming this cultivar Trinacria, which is a Sicilian form of the Triskelion, Sprenger was possibly refering either to the overall triangular shape of the bloom or to Sicily itself, for which this is also an historical name. As the oldest name for the cultivar, it is this name that should be used.