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knottyceltic

Native/Cultivar/Hybrid??????

knottyceltic
18 years ago

Barb here, with the small woodland in my backyard and I have a question for the seasoned gardeners and botanists. So far I have been fortunate to find many of my woodland plants in their native...I don't know how you say it...native genetic ?form? Can someone please tell me how you say it correctly? My question is, however, how do you go about finding some native plants that are more obscure and and avoid the cultivated or hybridized versions of those plants? For example, if I wanted to buy "Beebalm" I would want to be looking for "Monarda didyma" but from my searches on the internet there are SOOOOO many cultivated and hybridized types of plants, how do I know if I am getting the real thing? Or are these ALSO the real thing? My husband wants me to stick to native plants but I'm guessing that cultivated kinds would not be considered STILL a native plant, correct? Or incorrect? Please help me sort out this confusion. Maybe some definitions would be helpful too.

Thanks,

Barb

Southern Ontario, CANADA Zone 6a

Comments (21)

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    If you ask for the "species" the grower will know what you are talking about. There are hybrids and then there are sports, variants and cultivars etc. of a species but if you say "I want species Monarda didyma" they should know what you mean. At least this is what works for me. Finding "species" cultivars of certain natives is getting more and more difficult unless you do mail order.

    Once you start getting into genotype's yer gettin' too nitpicky for me because I'm just a gardener BUT if you're doing restoration it could be crucial.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Well we are doing a 'sort' of restoration but not really since a woodlot is a LONG ways from it's original, natural state. Our woodlot is 2nd or 3rd generation and very un-natural looking. So we are literally starting from the "ground up". We have gone to a place nearby that only grows natives from hand picked seeds from our local region and ecosystems. This is the ideal however not "practial" as they don't have EVERYTHING we are looking for. So asking for the native species is next best thing I guess. The problem I've been running into is that even the best nurseries tell me things are the "orignal native species" even when I know darn well they are not. I don't know if they are mistaken or if they just want to make a sale and it really makes me dubious of the nursery folks even though I'd like to be able to trust in their knowledge and honesty. Thanks.

    Barb

  • gardener_sandy
    18 years ago

    If you post this on the Native Plant forum there should be people there with info on nurseries that specialize in natives. Sounds like a nice project. Good luck.

  • Judy_B_ON
    18 years ago

    There are a number of native plant nurseries in Southern Ontario. Where do you live? The North American Native Plant Society has a seed exchange and annual plant sale in Toronto:

    http://www.nanps.org/index.shtml

    Whether or not you use cultivars is up to you, unless you are doing a restoration. Some cultivars do not have the same hardiness and wildlife benefit as the species. For a list of native to Ontario species, try Lorraire Johnson's book "The Ontario Naturalized Garden" in bookstores and libraries.

    BTW, Monarda didyma is not considered an Ontario Native, it is native to just south of Ontario. It grows best in full sun and has many garden cultivars. Monarda fistulosa is an Ontario native that grows in sun or part shade and would be found in open woods. It has few garden cultivars. If you want an Ontario Bee Balm for your woodland, consider fistulosa.

    Below is a link to the Monardas

    Here is a link that might be useful: Monarda Pictures

  • Elaine_NJ6
    18 years ago

    The answer, I've found, is mail order from reliable native plant nurseries that sell only native species. I don't even look at local garden centers. Also, use a good field guide that will tell you what is native. I don't worry about local genotypes, because if I did I'd grow nothing but Norway maple and ailanthus.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    KWoods, Sandy and Elaine, thanks for your replies. :O)

    Sandy, I will post on the forum you suggested, I just wasn't sure b/c some forums don't allow you to cross post but in the gardening world it's hard to find answers in just one forum without doing it. I just didn't want to break the rules. Thanks.

    Judy, thanks for the link and the book suggestion. I've already looked at Amazon.ca and Chapters.ca but neither has this book so NOW I WANT IT EVEN MORE! hahaahah... it does look like a good book so I will keep checking for it's availability. Thanks. Oh and ps... I did know Fistulosa is the native one as I had been just reading about it from my book "Botanica North America" but just had a brain blip when I posted. Too much words are floating through my head these days. ;o)

    Elaine, thanks I will look into the mail order stuff... I don't think mail order is as popular in CANADA as it is in the USA but I'll check it out anyway. I can't really feasably order from the USA though because the taxes, shipping and red tape is incredibly expensive and annoying particularly if they use UPS which has additional charges tacked on at the customs offices.

    Barb

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    Nursery trade is a funny thing. Gotta find someone that's knowledgable, that you can talk to and trust.

    I have found that some of the most knowledgeable people can be the most generous w/ their expertise. One thing I do if I am looking for a specific plant or am interesed in a certain nursery is send a polite email asking very specific questions. I try and do it when they are not busy in the spring and early part of the season. I also do my best not to pester or annoy them, sometimes I succeed ;o). Sometimes you stikeout and sometimes you make really fruitful and intereting connections w/ people that become a valuable resource.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Thanks for those tips. I often email nurseries first to sorta "feel them out" before I go there anyway. I live in a small town/city so there's nothing here and I have to drive a distance to get to anything. So first I email to ask them about particular plants and I only go there if they actually have the specific thing I want. I 'am' going to look into the online ordering of "difficult to find" plants though. That seems the most practical way for me and for what we are doing with our woods.

    And getting back to one of my original questions... if a plant name has a third name in ""'s tacked onto it, does that mean that it has been "fiddled with" to make other colours and so forth? Or can genetically "original/native" plants also have a third name in quotation marks as well? If someone might explain this to me using the native Lobelia in Ontario that may help.

    Thanks so much.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Maybe our native Lobelia is too difficult to make examples as you don't often see it in the nurseries but any other native plant (ie. Pale Corydalis or lady fern) would work as you find cultivated types in the stores and nurseries.

    For instance when I asked at a local nursery if they had "Pale Coridalis" the owner showed me a yellow variety when I was looking for the native pink with a tinge of yellow. She assured me that the yellow was the ORIGINAL NATIVE version but I wasn't sure any more so I left empty handed and confused.

    Barb

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    If something is named it is usually a cultivar. A cultivar is a plant bred from the species for unusual characteritics eg. bigger flowers, upright habit etc..

    If it just has the species name it should be the "original, native" species.

    That should be all you need know to get the plants you want so read no further.

    BUT some species have tremendous variability within the species itself and sometimes these variants can be named too (then taxonomists bicker over whether or not it is a separate species or genotype or whatever).

    ALSO sometimes an individual within a species may display a characteristic on one part of the plant but not another, like a flower that is picoteed, this is a sport that is then vegetatively propagated (cloned) and named, is it still the species?

    AND sometimes there is just a genetic freak within the species. You grow 10,000 species monarda and one is yellow, this gets named too and vegetatively propagated, is the freak still the species?

    OR there can sometimes be genotypes of a species from a certain locale that display an unusual characteristic, it then gets named after that location. Is it the species, a genotype of the species, a variant, an unamed species? What?

    There are probably other exceptions as well.

    Confused yet? It's going to get even weirder. My brother in law is a horticultural geneticist and does "pure" research. Basically I have come to understand that what "pure" research means is it has absolutely no practical application, or at least he doesn't concern himself with it's pragmatics. He has isolated a gene from some organism that bioluminesces and has spliced it into plant tissue, he then clones the plant. You end up with biolumenescent (glowing) plants. He wants to make frankenstein christmas trees with this technology. That's an extreme example but others are fiddling with genes to "enhance" plants for the horticultural trade. These monsters can't be the species? They're not hybrids, what are they?

    Taxonomy in horticulture is enough of a mess, once you get into the nursery trade and common names it gets evn crazier, just the way it is. With technological advances in propagation and production (especially with geneticists screwing around) it's going to get stranger and stranger. You would probably need to do gene mapping on every named and unnamed variation within a species to sort the whole mess out, maybe.

    Now that I've muddied the waters even more, maybe someone should explain the whole issue properly to me!

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    No, no no no no... K Woods... your explanation was PRECISELY what I was wanting to know. It was very good. Thank you very much.

    See, I breed an exotic species of hamster so I know species, phenotype, genotype and all that with my hamsters and I know how to establish if a hamster has crossed into a "hybrid"...it's all clear cut, but I didn't know how you read the latin name of a plant and where you draw the line from the plant being the original, native to it being a cultivar. Where I get a bit confused is when there are two of a species native to one place. For instance, there are at least 3 Lobelia native to Ontario. All three I think are further north of me and one being much further. However when I go to the plant store you will see perhaps 5 types of Lobelia and I was getting confused. Your explanation of simply sticking to the species name is very helpful.

    Barb

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    Lobelia cardinalis
    Lobelia siphilitca
    Lobelia kalmii
    Lobelia dortmanna
    Lobelia erinus
    Lobelia spicata

    Genus species (var.)

  • winged_mammal
    18 years ago

    Sometimes a cultivar might be more native than an un-named plant. For example if you lived in western North Carolina and out of a field of pinxter azaleas the prettiest one was picked out and introduce to the trade and given a cultivar name, that plant is more native than an un-named pinxter azalea from Connecticut or whereever.

    If you live in Florida and by a straight species Cornus florida it could have come from Maine.

    Many native cultivars come from the wild.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Well now I'm confused again *wink wink*

    Barb
    Southern Ontario, CANADA Zone 6a

  • winged_mammal
    18 years ago

    thank you. my job here is done.
    ha ha

  • apcohrs
    18 years ago

    Many cultivars are simply natural variations that have been chosen because someone liked the variations better - ie. bigger flower, smaller plant, disease resistance, unusual color, etc.

    This selection IS the native species - pure as the driven snow. The selection is then named and propagated. Sometimes the variation carries through to it's seed descentdents. (White flowered forms are frequently like this.) Sometimes it doesnt and then the variation must be maintained by asexual propagation like cuttings or divisions of the original plant. The results are still pure native species.

    There is only one concern in planting that named selection, and that is a narrowing of the genetic database. For example, one author I know recommends Acer rubrum Red Sunset as being the best selection for our growing area. However, in the interests of genetic variety, he plants some of the other selections also.

    All of the above ONLY applies to naturally occuring variations. If a hortorculturalist made several selections based on, say, larger flowers, and then crossed those plants with each other other and continued to make selections and breed for flower size, the result of this breeding program is still PURE native species, genetically.

    But, but, but I might not call it native anymore. The form and grace of the wild plant may have been lost. Other traits may have been so neglected in the breeding program that it cannot survive in the wild (double flowers are frequently sterile).

    But genetically, it is still a native plant as long as no other species was introduced in the breeding program.

    The monarda selections are an interesting question - apparently SOME of the cultivars are not straight species. However, others are - they have been selected for disease resistance as well as color. I think disease resistance is an excellent quality, So I fudge. I include my monarda cvs on my native plant list, but they have an asterisk.

  • knottyceltic
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Thanks Apcohrs.

    So let me see if I get this right.

    A "native cultivar" is not bad but also can be good if it has been cultivated to resist bad bugs or something but you might want to mix it with true natives to keep the gene diversity. Native cultivars can also be good for size of bloom, better colour etc.

    Anything that has more than one name with a "x" in the middle is a "hybrid" then??? So if something has been crossed with something else it is no longer native or pure, is that right? So I will want to stay away from those when I'm buying for my woods that is strictly native specimens.

    Or is the cross between two natives of the same species still native? Or something entirely new? For instance, the lobelias... when two native lobelias are crossed, is that a "hybrid"? I don't want hybrids in my woods, just pure (as can be found at any rate) natives.

    Now I think I'm confusing myself :o/

    Barb
    southern Ontario, CANADA zone 6a

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    From the original post

    "I'm guessing that cultivated kinds would not be considered STILL a native plant, correct?"

    As Apcohrs and I have both said, or tried to say(he better than I), yes and no. I would say again as a "rule of thumb" the closest plant you are likely to get to what you would actually find growing in the wild most often is the "species". Sometimes it is unnamed (genus, species) sometimes it is named (genus, species, species).

    Avoid hybrids (crosses of different species) which should have an "x" in the name.

    Lobelia cardinalis (cardinalis) is what I would plant in my garden if I were trying to have the plant that most closely matched the one found in the wild. I would not plant Lobelia cardinalis (summit snow) because it is not representative of the species.

    It helps if you have a frame of reference when you are choosing plants. If you have seen them in the wild and want to replicate that "look" you can more easily choose cultivars.

    It depends more on what the definition of "Native" means to you than the scientific/horticultural nomenclature, especially once you go beyond species. Taxonomists can't even decide what "species" really means so I think we all have to define what "Native" means ourselves.

  • apcohrs
    18 years ago

    You can easily end up 'chasing your tail' on this issue.

    While a named selection might not normally be desired by a native purist, there is one situation where I firmly believe that named, asexually propagated forms SHOULD ALWAYS be chosen. And that is whenever the plant is rare and threatened and not easily propagated from seed. In this case, you are assured that the named clone will not have been collected from the wild.

    I consider myself a native plant enthusiast, but emphatically not a purist. I have lots of ornamental exotics as long as they are not an environmental threat.

    I wrote an essay on the Native Plants forum once on the many definitions of native. This is the short form:

    I keep a plant inventory where I try to indicate the country of origin, even for hybrids where there are more than one. If a plant is native to the north american continent, it gets an N (for native) but the N is modified: N PNW or N EUS or N TX or N CAN.

    If it is native to the state, but not my area (i.e downstate Illinois has native taxodium) I write N (county).

    If it is in Floyd Swink's book Plants of the Chicago Region, it gets an unambiguous N and Swink's rarity code: N20 for native orchids.

    For native plant I found growing wild on my property when I moved here, it gets an X with Swink's rarity code.

    Except for the X's, it's all a cheat. Bog and Fen plants were never native to my property, but I have built approximately appropriate environments and call the store bought plants native.

    It's a game I enjoy very much.

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    To further confuse the issue most people consider naturally occuring hybrids "Native" as well.

  • kwoods
    18 years ago

    Great post Apcohrs! (my last post crossed w/ yours)

    I enjoy the very same "game" and agree w/ you 100% about chasing your tail on the "Native" issue. It's like saying "How different is different?", how "native" is native?

    I collect straight species (from everywhere, not just NA) and some naturally occuring hybrids so I guess you could say they are all "native" to somewhere ;o) That doesn't mean I don't have an exbury azalea in with my calendulaceums because I LOVE the look of that particular exbury w/ calendulaceum. I could argue that that particular exbury azalea is in fact native because it has no luteum in it, but I know in my heart it is not native no matter how badly I want it to be.

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