A native of northern Argentina, it was introduced in England from South America in 1731.

[3] Full heads of raspberry red flowers held high over the deeper green leaves.

The inflorescence stalk is triangular in cross-section and acutely angled; with three distinct longitudinal ridges.

[4] Paulus Johannes Maria Maas from Netherlands[5] and Nobuyuki Tanaka from Japan, both experts in the taxonomy of genus Canna, assign different classifications for this species.

Dr Maas considers C. coccinea to be a synonym of C. indica L., however, Dr Tanaka's DNA-based approach shows that species in the Canna indica complex can be clearly distinguished from other taxa, as a result he recognises it as a separate species.