The Aroid Guide
AROID CULTIVARS
What makes a cultivar, how one is validly established, and which origins the ICNCP accepts — with examples from the archive.
A cultivar is a taxon — an assemblage of plants that (1) has been selected for a particular characteristic or combination of characteristics, and (2) remains distinct, uniform, and stable in those characters when propagated by appropriate means.
A variant of one species, selected for a stable trait and propagated true.
The cross itself — a plant from two species or cultivars, named and held by asexual propagation.
A cross reads ovule donor × pollen donor. Each parent is coloured by its own kind — see the keys above.
158 in the archive →A variant of one hybrid, selected for a stable trait and propagated true — and a hybrid cultivar can be selected from in turn.
‘Loco’ is four steps from the cross: a mutation of ‘Mandalay’, itself a mutation of ‘Polly’, itself a selection off ‘Amazonica’. Each step had to hold its character through propagation to be named at all.
‘Teletubbies’ origin unknown — parent hybrid not established.
All 6 in the archive →Parentage is given as each entry records it — where an entry hedges, so does this page.
- Taxon
- A taxonomic group of organisms that form a unit.
- Assemblage
- A group of plants, not a single specimen.
- Character(s)
- Morphological traits — blade shape/colour, habit, floral characters — alone or combined.
- Distinct
- Distinguishing characters retained through propagation.
- Uniform
- Observable and reasonably constant across all plants.
- Stable · true
- Persist through asexual propagation, or seed that comes ‘true’.
- 01A selected, propagated wild individual (cuttings, tubercles, leaves) differing from the species norm.
- 02A selected, propagated wild-species seedling differing from the norm.
- 03A seedling from any deliberate or accidental cross within or between species and hybrids.
- 04Selected [or all] seedlings from a cultivar that produces seed asexually.
- 05A selected, propagated sport shoot (e.g. a variegated shoot).
- 06A variant arising from tissue culture.
- 07A plant of changed ploidy (e.g. a tetraploid).
- 08A plant from deliberate genetic modification.
Other kinds exist in plants generally but are not known in aroids — see the ICNCP.
Origin is irrelevant to identity — plants indistinguishable by current Araceae methods are treated as one cultivar.
Characters held solely by cultivation do not qualify. Variegates needing shoot-removal can still be cultivars; a plant needing chemical treatment to hold its character — like Philodendron PINK CONGO — cannot.