In 1737 Linnaeus published ‘Hortus Cliffortianus’, a list of the plants cultivated in the garden of G. Clifford in the Netherlands, and ‘Viridiarum Cliffortianum’, an abbreviated version of the former book. He noticed 2 ‘kinds’ of plants from this garden:
1. Canna spathulis bifloris (= Canna indica) originating from the warm parts of America, Asia, and Africa, and cultivated in the wild form and in 3 ‘Varietates obviae’:
– Naturalis allegata planta, flore luteo est
– Cannacorus flore luteo punctato Tournef.
– Cannacorus amplissimo folio, flore rutilo Tournef.
– Cannacorus flore coccineo splendente Tournef.
2. Canna foliis lanceolatis petiolatis (= Canna glauca) from very hot and wet places in America.
In this way Linnaeus arranged the descriptive sentences then commonly used by botanists to ‘name’ plants in 2 groups: the 2 species of Canna he would later discern as C. indica and C. glauca.