Transplant Garden — Rare and Curious Plants

Thankfully, most vendors I have come across seem to be selling the real deal when it comes to Kanna. I have only seen a few instances where someone has reported receiving the wrong species of plant when they ordered a Kanna. I am writing this post to hopefully show people what is legitimate so that they don’t get burned when buying a Kanna plant. I want people to receive the species they ordered.

Wild identification of Kanna

I won’t be going into a field guide of how to identify kanna in the wild, or out and about in the world. I want to highlight something I’ve seen a few times before.

Every once in a while, you’ll see a reddit post that claims that someone has come across a Kanna plant growing in someone’s yard. While this may be possible in South Africa, most of these posters clarify that they do not live in South Africa.

The odds that you are walking somewhere outside of South Africa and you come upon a kanna plant is exceedingly unlikely. There is a common plant that looks sort of like Kanna.

Baby Sun Rose

Baby Sun Rose is the usual suspect I’ve found for people misidentifiying Kanna.

Baby Sun Rose (BSR) is gorgeous, and it does actually have levels of Mesembrine (the main active ingredient in Kanna), but it is not Kanna.

The two plants are from the same family Mesembryanthemum, but they have some key differences that help to distinguish them: flower color, leaf shape, and in some cases leaf color.

Kanna has delicate white and yellow flowers while Baby Sun Rose has almost neon pink and purple flowers

Baby sun rose tends to have smooth, wider heart shaped leaves while kanna tends to have bumpy, slender leaves.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this, can’t find a stock photo, and I don’t want to take someone else’s photo, but BSR can have brilliantly white accents on the leaves. Kanna can have whitish segments on the leaves, but not to the level that Baby Sun Rose has.

All in all, I wanted to include this section to educate about a Kanna look alike and relative you may potentially come across as you explore your area. I have seen BSR around the city I live in. It is a popular ornamental plant that has enjoyed more widespread popularity than Kanna has.

Let’s get into the main topic: Kanna

Kanna Leaves

If the texture of the leaves look smooth, it could still be a kanna, but look closely at the other indicators. Also, keep in mind that these examples have solid green leaves. There are some lighter parts, but no distinctly white areas.

Flowers

Kanna Flowers are a wispy pale yellow. They remind me of a more delicate version of a dandelion’s flowers.

Conclusion

Hopefully these images and descriptions are helpful in identifying kanna if you are looking to buy some plants for yourself. A few extra tips:

Look for the scientific name in the plant listing. Most reputable vendors of rare plants will put the scientific name in the listing description. Kanna’s is Sceletium Tortuosum.

If you are having trouble deciding if a plant is kanna, reach out to others for confirmation. The r/kanna community on reddit is a useful tool to help determine if a seller is legitimate.