Canna ‘Cleopatra’ foliage with characteristic brown stripes
Cleopatra is a chimera. That means that there are two different sets of genes within the plant tissue that cause the striped leaves and harlequin flowers. Lovely brown and green leaves are a predictor for lovely yellow and red flowers.
Cleopatra is unstable, so that no two flowers may look alike. Completely green shoots will create solid yellow flowers. Brown shoots will have all red flowers.