My parents have beautiful red cannas in their garden, they brought them yrs ago from the house we lived in when I was a kid. They were there when they bought that house 34 yrs ago. These cannas have always been red as far as I know. They get very tall, I don't know the exact species but they are beautiful. Anyway, out of the blue I notice amongst the red blooms a tall bright neon yellow bloom with a shock of bright orange in the center. I asked if they had planted a different kind and they said no, but that every now and then one changes color. My mom seems to think theyre somehow mixing with the yellow and orange lantana it's beside but I thought that seemed silly. It is almost exactly the same shade of yellow and orange though. My question is does anyone know the reason for this? I asked how often it happens and my mom couldn't really say, maybe every few yrs one odd colored one, the rest red. I think it fascinating and want to know why. Surely my moms not correct that completely different plants can somehow cross pollinate and affect the color of one.
Plants have the color genes in them. On occasion they will mutate, which is where many of our odd colored plants have come from, such as purple millet. There wasn't purple on the market until a few years ago after someone found one growing in there crop of millet, so they saved the seeds from that plant and regrew them and developed a new color that we use for the ornamental flower industry. So in order to answer your question, I seriously doubt that there is any cross pollination going on and you would only see it if the seeds were being dropped on the ground and they were reseeding them selves, but it wouldn't cross pollinate with the lantna, though.
I knew it had to do with genetics somehow. It's funny the color change just happens to exactly match the lantanas though, which makes my mom believe her theory more lol. Cannas are becoming my new interest, I've gotten a few of their reds, and bought a few bulbs myself. I can't wait to get them settled and watch them grow over the yrs. so far only one has started growing well though. Maybe I'll see some surprising color mutations over time.
Some plants will change color because of the mineral content of the soil they are growing in. If that changes, the more susceptible roots will be affected and changes happen. And some will change color genetically. But cross pollination between Genera doesn't happen since they don't share any genetic similarities.
