Cultivar queries

pierre_de_gaye · September 2018

Hi

Can someone help me understand cultivars?

I gather they are the result of purposeful breeding, or random mutations, some are hybrids and some not.

Now I get that for hybrids, repeated parent crossings give our hybrid seeds,which grow into our cultivar but cannot breed true themselves.

But what about non-hybrid cultivars - how do those seeds originate?
For sake of argument (I could probably name hundreds) things like echinops 'taplow blue' , helianthus 'lemon queen' etc etc. These are presumably not hybrids (no 'x' in their name) yet are available as seeds?

Hope someone can enlighten me.

Thanks in advance.

nutcutlet · September 2018

Cultivar is Cultivated Variety, plants with larger flowers are selected and may given a cultivar name if they're good enough or bred with another the produce something even better. You can get seeds from cultivars and people sell them as the cultivar but it's a matter of luck whether your plant is like the cultivar.
You can have cultivars of hybrids as well.
But you only need one cross between two different species to get a hybrid.

pierre_de_gaye · September 2018

thanks nutcutlet - most helpful. sounds quite complicated science, but you help make it simpler. so the 'taplow blue' or 'lemon queen' or A.N Other cultivars that the companies sell as seeds will not necessarily grow into those cultivars, is that what you're saying? Would I be able to tell if they had or had not come true in real terms?

JennyJ · September 2018

You can only really tell if seedlings have come true by comparing with a bought plant that was propagated by division, growing in the same conditions, or if the seedlings turned out so different that it's obvious.

Cultivar queries

Posts