canna
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canna
Canna
the only genus of the family Cannaceae. The plants are large perennial herbs with strong stalks; they often have tuberous thickened rhizomes. The leaves are large, broad, pinnately veined, and sheathed. The flowers are irregular, monoecious, large, and usually brightly colored; they are gathered into a paniculate terminal racemose or inflorescence. The perianth is binate. Only half of the anther of one stamen is fertile; the remaining half and the other stamens are petaloid and are stami-nodia. The stigma has a petal-like style. The ovary is inferior and trilocular. The fruit is a capsule. There are approximately 50 species, found in tropical and subtropical America. There are approximately 1,000 garden varieties (for example, Canna × genera lis and C. × hortensis), which are used in cultivation. They differ in color, leaf color, size, height of stalk, and form of the staminodia. The species Indian shot (C. indica) is cultivated in Europe as a greenhouse ornamental; C. edulis is grown in the Americas and Australia for its rhizomes, which contain starch from which the queensland arrowroot is obtained.