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.
* An undescribed species, traded under an informal name until it is published.
The cross itself — a plant from two parents (species, cultivars or other hybrids), named and held by asexual propagation.
A cross reads ovule donor × pollen donor. Each parent is colored by its own kind — see the keys above.
155 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 15 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/color, 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.
- Alocasia longiloba ‘Watsoniana’
A species cultivar is the species name followed by the cultivar epithet in single quotes. The old trade habit of turning epithets into species names, as in
Alocasia watsoniana, is not a valid form. - Alocasia ‘Amazonica’
A hybrid is the genus followed by its own epithet. Aroids have no grex names, so a form like
Alocasia × amazonicais not used for an aroid hybrid, except when quoting older sources. - ‘Watsoniana’, not ‘Variegata’
New cultivar epithets in Latin form have not been allowed since January 1st, 1959. Older ones, such as ‘Watsoniana’, can be kept. A label like ‘Variegata’ describes a trait that many different plants share, so it does not name a cultivar unless a registry or a published revision has accepted it as one.
- A name in the trade is not a registration
A cultivar is established when it is published with a description, and registered when the IAS accepts it. Many names in the archive are market names that were never submitted, so their entries report how the name is used.