The Spruce / David Beaulieu
The terms “cultivar” and “variety” are commonly used inplant taxonomy.
Plant cultivars are different from plant varieties.
Here is what you better know about purchasing and growing cultivars and plant varieties.
The Spruce / David Beaulieu
What Is a Cultivar?
Cultivars are created from stem cutting, grafting, tissue cultures, or cross-pollination.
Breeding a cultivar often begins by cross-pollinating two self-pollinating parent plants.
This is called hybridizing and the process usually involves years of experimentation and expense.
Once ahybridwith the intended features is achieved, it is identified as a cultivar.
Cultivars also begin as natural mutations which, in plant terminology, are referred to as sports.
Names of cultivars are often set off by single quotation marks.
Identifying plants this way offers more detail about the plant’s features than listing just the genus and species.
For example,Rudbeckia hirta’Denver Daisy' is a cultivar of the speciesRudbeckia hirta.
The species is fairly easily hybridized to create cultivars with specific colors and growth patterns.
What Is a Variety?
A plant variety is found growing and reproducing naturally in the plant kingdom.
It varies from its standard species in some way as a result of natural evolution.
Plant varieties are most often found in groupings that havecross-pollinatedas adaptions to differences in habitat.
Plants grown from the seeds of a species variety are often exact copies of the parent plant.
What Is a Plant Variety?
Correct Labeling for Varieties
The abbreviation"var.
“usually follows the genus and species names of a plant variety.
This is then followed by the variety’s proper name in lower case italics.
An example of this punch in of adaption is thepurple Japanese mapleidentified taxonomically asAcer palmatum var.
Cultivar vs.
Here are other key differences.
Groups vs. Cultivars are individual plants that exhibit a desirable characteristic a grower wishes to retain and repeat.
A cultivar may occur in nature as a mutation to a single plant (“sport').
Seed Viability
Plant varieties produce seeds that develop into replicas of the parent plant.
Some cultivars do not produce seed at all; they have been bred to be sterile on purpose.
A plant patent prohibits propagation for 20 years and is non-renewable.
The cultivar is a selected hybrid that exhibits a specific desirable trait or traits.
IowaState University Extension Office.
Plants and Intellectual Property.
