Wild canna lily (false sugarcane), Kinshasa, Congo (Democratic Republic)

A rhizomatous herb to about 1.30 high, with scarlet or orange-red flowers, native of tropical America, but naturalized throughout tropical Asia and Africa, and found in the W African region mainly in the forest belt near habitations.The leaves are washed and used in water as a cure for fever. The tender shoots are applied to bruises and cuts. The steins produce an emollient and analgesic action, and this is made use to assuage rheumatic pains, buboes, urethritis and even fractures, and for coughs, fevers and jaundice. In Congo a tisane is given to children to sooth paroxysmal coughing in whooping-cough, and the sap is applied to sores and to arrest bleeding. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for National Geographic and traveled to Africa from January 19, 1972 to mid April 1972.