Aw, I’m sorry to hear about losing your family’s canna legacy. That must have been a huge bummer.
What plants did you choose to start your new landrace? I started with two each of yellow, pink, and red (all the genetic diversity they had available at my local plant nursery, laugh), and I also got some seeds from a trade with another gardener who lives in Florida. I don’t know the specific species of any of them.
My tip so far with canna seeds: they definitely need scarification. I sowed ten each into four different locations, and none sprouted. Then I scarified another ten by nail clipping a chunk off of the tough outer shell and planted them, and one sprouted. Presoaking may have helped too, but I think scarification was a definite necessity.
Of course, we can hope the other seeds I planted in other spaces will get around to sprouting eventually.
I also got four achira corms in a trade with a different gardener who lives in Florida, which I planted in my greenhouse in fall. I’m hoping they’ll pop up in spring! If they do, I’m hoping to propagate them a whole lot and use them for breeding, since that’s the canna that has been selected for eating.
It was very disappointing and I am still hoping maybe one will pop up this spring but I know it is unlikely.
I am lucky to have many other family plants in my garden.
For my canna landrace I have 3 hardy achira cannas from a permaculture guy in Kentucky, I have 5 red flowered hardy canna seeds from plants originally found at an abandoned homestead in z6 North Carolina, and then I have over 100 seeds of mixed open pollinated populations all sourced from plants in z7-z8a climates.
I got a few seeds from mine this fall! Not many, but enough to make me confident the plants are perfectly happy to make seeds.
Hee hee. At the nursery, I was sneaky and chose pots with the largest number of stems and the most crammed-in, overly-crowded clump of rhizomes I could find. I figured that would make it easier for me to divide them to propagate faster, and if I liked the taste of the rhizomes, I’d have more to eat.
I did that once with some variegated yuccas from one of the nurseries I worked at. Bought two extremely root bound 3 gal pots and turned them into 60 1 gallon yucca plants.
Makes sense! Adam’s Needle seems to be the most popular species. You know, the green seed pods are edible and taste like green bell peppers. The flower petals are edible too, and taste the same. (I’ve tried some.) So if you like green bell peppers . . .
I don’t like bell peppers, so I’m planning to grow Yucca baccata for the sweet-tasting fruits instead. Apparently they taste like sweet potatoes, only sweeter. Sounds yummy.
I’m also hoping to grow Yucca aloifolia. That species has edible fruits too, and they’re supposed to taste like blueberry jam mixed with blackstrap molasses. Must eat!
Hey, @VeggieSavage! (Sends up Batman signal.) Got a phylogenic tree for the Yucca genus and/or Asparagaceae family?
Yucca aloifolia has some really beautiful ornamental varieties available too. Lots of purple/red colors.
I’m interested to see that yucca phylogenetic tree also. I have a pretty uncommon yucca called a Glen Rose Yucca, Yucca necopina, and I’m curious where they place it.
I think this might be cuz shade in your climate is the only place where water lasts longer. I wonder if they also can’t survive your intense UV rays.
dang that sucks. How long ago was this? maybe they are just really really delayed in germination?
Fantastic! I’ve haven’t studied cannas much, do you know how their toxicity works? Can I select it out by tasting? Especially when working with wilder species of Canna.
Is the root the only part that’s edible?
Fantastic! Thanks for the tip, I’ve heard the seeds are also known as Buckshots cuz they’re so hard.
Wow! So they will just continue to thrive even if abonded! That’s awesome. Is there potential to find them as wild edibles?
WHOA! That’s incredible, sweet potato tasting fruits above ground is awesome!
PFAF says “Fruit - raw or cooked[2, 46, 61]. Large and fleshy[161, 183]. The fruit is often dried for winter use[1].”. The winter use part got me interested, maybe that’s where the sweet potato association came from? Idk, haven’t studied Yuccas yet.
WHAT!? That’s EPIC! Now the gardeners in Desert climates have something to subsitute bluebrrries with . Such exciting flavors, make me want to grow them for the fruit!
(Eyebrows raised.) Yucca and camas are that closely related? Wow, interesting. I’m not surprised that yucca’s close to agave, but its relative closeness to hosta also surprises me.
Yucca phylogenetic tree, why don’t you have Yucca aloifolia on there? I want to know if Yucca baccata and Yucca aloifolia can possibly be crossed!
I’ve eaten canna leaves. I figured I was cutting some of them off in order to help them adjust better to being transplanted, so why not eat them to see what I thought?
I ate them raw. They left a bit of an unpleasant sensation in my mouth afterwards – might have been astringency? So they’re probably better cooked. But otherwise, they tasted similar to banana leaves, just a bit more of a “leaf” taste to them. (Banana leaves taste exactly like cucumbers to me.)
I haven’t tried eating the flowers. I oughta try. Why not pull off a petal and give it a taste, right?
idk, sometimes Phylogenic Trees don’t include all the species (Hence Why I try to find multiple Phylogenic Trees & Compare them). It could be they don’t include synonymous names or only include the older outdated scientific names? Sometimes you can find which section Yucca alnifolia belongs to and assume it’s position in the same Section (Often times all species in a section are cross-compatible).
However good news is *Yucca filamentosa
I look at this site & See if any of the older scientific names of Yucca alnifolia are present on the Phylogenic Tree.
As for specifcally Yucca alnifolia, “Results of DNA studies by K. H. Clary (1997) show a close relationship between this species and Y. gloriosa.”. Unfortuantley, Yucca gloriosa is Also not on the phylogenic tree .
Here’s where the Quote came from, also has Info on how to ID Yucca species.
From it we learn that Yucca alnofolia, Yucca gloriosa* & Yucca filamentosa are very closely related, almost like they’re a species complex with shared genomes.
Guess what is on the Bigger Phylogenic Tree, Yucca filamentosa (It’s in Red above Y. brevifolia in Blue). We can pretty much guarantee Yucca alnofolia is nested within the Y. filamentosa Branch.
So it’s pretty far away from Yucca baccata, so crossing them might be a long shot. Interesting that it’s so close to Adam’s Needle yucca, the most common species for landscaping!
dang that sucks. How long ago was this? maybe they are just really really delayed in germination?
. Such exciting flavors, make me want to grow them for the fruit!
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