Canna ‘Achira Dark’
(Agriculture Group)

HEIGHT Tall, 2-3 metres
FOLIAGE Bronze
FORM Spreading
FLOWER Red

A tall Agriculture Group cultivar; bronze foliage, large, oval shaped, maroon margin, spreading habit; triangular stems, coloured purple; spikes of flowers are erect, self-coloured red-orange, staminodes are long and narrow, edges regular, petals purple with farina, fully self-cleaning, blooms open in the early morning; fertile both ways, self-pollinating and also true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 7 cm in diameter, coloured purple; tillering is prolific.

This variety has bronze leaves with pronounced ribs, which make an elegant champagne flute shape as the leaves unravel and flatten out. All canna do this, but I believe that none do it as elegantly. My young grandchildren used to call them ‘fairy glasses’. It is late flowering, producing orange/crimson blooms in late summer/early autumn.

Impressive in size, stately plants that grow to about 2 metres tall with their leaves evenly spread out on the stem giving it a very neat, orderly appearance. This bronze leaf form of Achira has orange/crimson flowers.

Introduced to England from Peru in 1820. Originally thought to be a species in its own right, this is not accepted by modern botanists who consider it to be a Canna discolor variety or a sub-species of indica, depending upon which taxonomist you talk to. It is found along the coast of South America, the West Indies and in temperate valleys of the Andes, usually at the edges of moist thickets or in ditches.

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