Canna ‘Victor Hugo’ is a medium sized Crozy Group cultivar; green foliage, oval shaped, white margin, spreading habit; round main stems, coloured green + purple; triangular flower stalks, coloured green; flowers are open, scarlet with a narrow violet margin, throat salmon-red, staminodes are medium size, edges regular, stamen is gold, style is gold, petals red, partial self-cleaning, low bloomer, flowers in August until frosts in northern temperate zone, blooms open in the early morning; fertile both ways, not self-pollinating or true to type, capsules globose; rhizomes are thick, up to 3 cm in diameter, coloured pink and purple; tillering is average.
1887. Small. Broad, beautiful heart-shaped dark, greenish leaves. Flowers have violet edging to them, the large nobly-built flowers are scarlet red.
RHS Journal of 1894
Bronze Banksian Medal.
To J. C. Tasker, Esq., Brentwood (gr. Mr. Perry), for a group
of Cannas, conspicuous being Progression, Madame Croizy, and Victor Hugo.
This cultivar was found growing in a garden in St-Brieuc, Brittany, France in 2007 and cost a bottle of red wine to obtain a rhizome offcut. It was labelled as ‘Victor Hugo’, and the owner stated that she had inherited it from her grandmothers garden in the 1960’s. Her grandmother told her that she had inherited it from her parents, so it was considered to be a family heirloom.
The plant is crimson, but there has not yet been a violet edge shown on any of the sparse flowers that it has produced so far, but many of the heritage cannas do not produce well until they have been established several years.
