Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 10:10:54 -0800 (PST) From: Barry Meyers-Rice <bamrice@ucdavis.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg590$foo@default> Subject: wild collected cultivars or new taxa
> It sounds like you have something new to me. Perhaps this is an
> interesting form of S. * catesbaei? Generally, a cultivar doesn't come from
> the wild, but there are a lot of very interesting plants out there. If
Hi Dave,
As you point out, while most cultivars are created in cultivation, wild
collected cultivars are perfectly legitimate. If you found a nice pure
species with noteworthy characteristics, or a hybrid (even of uncertain
parentage), you could establish it as a cultivar. The cultivar
registration forms accomodate wild-collected cultivars in question 6,
where it states:
Give the name of the originator or collector of this cultivar. In the
case of a plant developed in cultivation, the originator is the
hybridizer/breeder. In the case of a plant collected from the wild, the
introducer is the person who selected the plant. In the case of the
latter, include the original source or locality of the plant. Include
the date of origination or collection.
> there are hundreds of these plants or thousands showing these same features
> at the location site, I would not call this a cultivar. However, if there
> were only a handful, out of hundreds or thousands of plants, showing this
> feature naming the plant as a cultivar has more merit to me. A cultivar is
> supposed to be unique, showing a quality(ies) that none or almost none of
> it's closest relatives show. If there are thousands of these plants near
As you point out in your argument above, this is a gray area.
> Which brings me to a question. If there are no wild plants of _S.
> purpurea subsp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola_. Would it not be better name
> this as a cultivar rather than as a taxon?
This is an interesting comment. I do not know if f. luteola occurs in the
wild, although plants did at one point. In a similar vein, when I found a
population of anthocyanin-free Darlingtonia californica plants, I had to
decide how to approach this. There were not many plants in this
population, and I did not consider a mere pigment mutation to be deserving
of a taxon name by the ICBN rules (i.e. I did not think the world needed a
Darlingtonia californica f. luteola), even though it would have been fun
and even ego-boosting to describe such a vanity-taxon. On the other hand,
it was indeed a plant with significant horticultural potential, so naming
it as a wild-collected cultivar seemed an excellent approach. Hence,
Darlingtonia 'Othello.'
Barry
------------------------
Dr. Barry A. Meyers-Rice
Carnivorous Plant Newsletter
Conservation Coeditor
barry@carnivorousplants.org
http://www.carnivorousplants.org
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