Pierre-Antoine-Marie Crozy
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Pierre-Antoine-Marie Crozy (1831-1903) [also called Crozy aîné -- French for "elder"]. A partner in Avoux & Crozy, La Guillotière, Lyon, France, he was active in rose-breeding from the 1850s to 1860s. From the early 1860’s up until his death in 1903 he was actively hybridising Canna, and introduced many hundreds of new cultivars, to the extent that the largest Canna Group is still called the Crozy Group, and many of those cultivars are still being grown.
Crozy's major success was creating from Canna, a foliage plant with insignificant flowers, a floriferous group of hybrids with large and appealing flowers. By the time of his death in 1903 the Canna was the most popular garden flower in both his native France and in the USA, where it even outsold roses.
The most famous of the cultivars introduced by Crozy was Canna 'Madame Crozy', and this was later used by both Luther Burbank in California and Carl Sprenger in Italy to cross with the species Canna flaccida to produce the first of the Italian Group Cannas.
Succeeded by his son, Michel Crozy (1871-1908).
[edit] References
- Burbank, Luther - How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man: Plant Breeding
- Chaté, E - Le Canna, 1866
- Cooke, I - The Gardeners Guide to Growing Canna, Timber Press, 2001
- RHS - RHS Dictionary of Gardening, 1992.
- Roll Call: The Old Rose Breeder
