Canna patens is an utterly beautiful species Canna with small delicate bi-coloured flowers - yellow and orange/red - with gorgeous orange/red speckling on the small yellow labellum. The foliage is lush green and relatively small.

Taxonomically, it was considered a separate species by Nobuyuki Tanaka in his 2001, 'Taxonomic revision of the family Cannaceae in the New World and Asia' but reduced to a synonym of Canna indica by Hiltje Maas-van de Kamer and Paul Maas in their 2008, 'The Cannaceae of the World'. Like all Canna taxonomy, nothing is ever simple or clear-cut but apparently Nobuyuki Tanaka's categorisation was confirmed by DNA sample. It certainly is distinctive and comes true to seed.