When is a Variety a Culitvar?

We've all heard the terms "variety" and "cultivar" when referring to plants.  We've also all seen descriptive names applied to plants, such as Blue Mouse Ears hosta or Tomato Soup echinacea.  Variety and cultivar are often used interchangeably, which for the most part doesn't make any difference.  But, sometimes it does.

A "variety" is a plant that occurs in nature - the wild coneflowers that grow on the prairies of North Dakota,  for example.  A "cultivar" is a plant that has been reproduced through some type of human intervention.  The word culitvar itself comes from the combination of the words culitvated and variety.  The human intervention might not amount to much - it might be just the process of collecting the seeds and growing them in a controlled environment to enable mass production.  Often, though, the reproduction is done "vegetatively", through stem cuttings, like I did with my jade plant last weekend.  Therein lies the reason it might be helpful to know if what you have is a "variety" or a "cultivar".

A variety will almost always reproduce from seed and it will come true to the parent plant, meaning the plant you start from seed will be identical to the plant from which you collected the seed.  A culitvar, on the other hand, is only guaranteed to retain the characteristics of its parent plant for its generation.

Phlox paniulcata 'Bright Eyes'

 So, if you collect seed from your beautiful 'Bright Eyes' phlox so that you can start dozens more plants just like the one you already have, you might be disappointed when, instead of having the striking light pink surrounding the hot pink eye, you have a plain old pink flower.  That doesn't mean it won't still be beautiful - it just means it will be different.  If you divide the root ball of your 'Bright Eyes' and start new plants that way, you are vegetatively propagating and your new plants will be identical to your parent plant.

Most of the plants we see today are culitvars.  When you see names like 'Bright Eyes', or 'Music Box' shrub rose, or 'Early Girl' tomatoes, you are seeing the name of the cultivar.  If you were to see the full name of 'Bright Eyes', you would first see Phlox (genus) paniculata (species) 'Bright Eyes' (culitvar).  The culitvar generally is an English name that is either the name of a person or in some way describes the plant.  Written correctly, it is capitalized and placed in single quotes. 



var. Echinacea angustifolium

A variety name is often a latin name and the plant is likely more widely known by a common name, e.g. the native prairie plant known commonly as  purple coneflower would be a variety named Echinacea angustifolia.  If you were buying this it may have the abbreviation var. before the name.


Now flowers are beautiful, whether they are varieties or cultivars and vegetables produce regardless of what you call them.  But if you are a seed saver, it is good for you to know which seeds will give you the exact same plant as you had before and which might produce something either just a little or a lot different.



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