Description:

• Rhizomatous glabrous herbs
• Stems tall, annual
• Leaves alternate, with sheathing bases; large, pinnately veined with a prominent midrib, decreasing in size upwards; ligule 0
• Inflorescence terminal, spicate or thyrsoid; bracts usually small, green
• Flowers bisexual, irregular, large
• Sepals 3, free, short, ovate to lanceolate, green or subpetaloid, persistent
• Petals 3, longer than sepals, shortly connate at base, lanceolate to linear, 1 smaller than others, petaloid
• Stamen 1, petaloid, bearing a half anther laterally; staminodes 1-4, petaloid, more conspicuous than petals, one next to stamen forming a lip
• Ovary inferior, 3-locular, verrucose with many axile ovules; style petaloid with an oblique terminal stigma
• Capsule triangular, verrucose
• Seeds usually freed by deterioration of capsular tissues, globose, hard, dark
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• *Cannaceae
  • Winkler: 640 (1930)
  • Hutchinson: 727 (1973)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genus 1, species 50-60; widespread in tropical and subtropical Central America

References:

• HUTCHINSON, J. 1973. Families of flowering plants, edn 3. Clarendon Press, Oxford
• WINKLER, H. 1930. Cannaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 15a

Resources:

• Cannaceae genus: *Canna