The Name Game

The Name Game! You know, >The Name Game!<
Sarracenia Sarracenia bo-barracenia,
banana-fana-fo-farracenia,
fe-fy-mo marracenia… SARRACENIA! 

With all of the combinations of plants and seemingly infinite breeding possibilities, things can get a little crazy when it comes to names. There are official cultivars, and then there are unofficial names. It’s one hectic name game. I realized that I’ve been blogging all this time using all these funky names and punctuations without going over basics.  My bad. I hope this post helps clarify some of the cryptic punctuation and algebraic-like notations I’ve been using. Let’s review.

You see me use plant A x plant B quite a bit. The mother plant is listed first. (Remember, ladies first!) This is the plant that bears the fruit and produces the seed. The daddy plant is the one that’s the pollen donor. The mother plant is listed before the x, and the pollen parent is listed after the “x.” You may ask, “Oh but isn’t A x B the same as B x A?”  Well… not really. Using one plant as the mother plant can yield some different results compared to the reciprocal cross. Yes, there are similarities between the offspring of both crosses, but it has been observed that the pod parent (mother) carries a little stronger influence on the progeny.

Then there’s the whole thing of the (parenthesis) that are used in hybrid/cross notation. Things can get pretty complex when it comes to multiple plants in the parentage, so the parenthesis are employed to keep track of what makes up what. After all, the parent plants on either side of the “x” can consist of a combination of many other plants.

Now, if there’s a plant that someone feels is pretty badass, they may choose to recognize this fabulousness and give it a name. The name could be a working name for their own personal records and/or pleasure, or the individual/s could go through the trouble and establish it as an official cultivar in line with the cultivar code.*

The word “cultivar” is a portmanteau (a combination of two or more words) and is derived from the words “cultivated” and “variety.” “Cultivar” is defined in the eighth edition of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants under article 2.3 as “…an assemblage of plants that (a) has been selected for a particular character or combination of characters,  (b) is distinct, uniform, and stable in these characters, and (c) when propagated by appropriate means, retains those characters…”

I bet some of you probably wondered, “Yooo, what up with the single quotes and double quotes?”  When indicating that something is a cultivar, use single quotes. (Take a look at some official Sarracenia cultivars here.) Check out Article 14.1 in the eighth edition of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants:

“Cultivar status is indicated by enclosing the cultivar epithet within single quotation marks. Double quotation marks and the abbreviations cv. and var are not to be used within a name to distinguish cultivar epithets; such use is to be corrected.”

On a final note regarding registering cultivars, I like how Barry Rice put it:

“Mind you, just because you have a lovely and wonderful plant, it is not necessarily worth registering as a cultivar. I have never met a Sarracenia I didn’t like, but hardly any qualify in my mind as being cultivars! I think that cultivar names should be reserved for plants that are really special.” 

“Really special” is something that opens up a whole ‘nother topic for discussion and passionate debate. Personally I haven’t submitted any plants for cultivar status. Not yet at least! There are a couple plants in the pipeline now that are promising – but things like this take time to properly evaluate. I hope to be able to register a few plants in the future.

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*The latest and greatest version of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants could be found by doing some web searching. You may buy the code, but if you look carefully enough, you’ll see some websites that you can actually download it from. It’s a hefty 206 page document that makes for some exciting reading material.