I know I'm not dumb but I always get flustered trying to enter a new plant into the database. What's so hard?

Genus
Species
Cultivar

So, I just entered Lisianthus eustoma Cinderella Double Lime. I know lisianthus is the common name but is Eustoma Grànddiflorum the species or genus? And Cinderella Double Lime the cultivar? Even when I google I cannot always figure it out. Is there a simple way to learn this?

Eustoma would be the genus and grandiflorum the species, but grandiflorum is no longer a valid name. It is now called exaltatum. Cinderella double lime would be the cultivar. There is a (Eustoma exaltatum subsp. russellianum 'Cinderella Lime') in the database, no double. I did a search and I don't think double is part of the name. 'Cinderella Lime' is a double flower.


Prairie Gentian (Eustoma russellianum Cinderella™ Lime)

Thanks for doing the research, Jay. I had approved the addition of Cinderella Double Lime, but I have now deleted that entry after reading your post and doing some research of my own.

Arlene, if you're not sure of the species, leave the line blank. When you're adding a cultivar, the essential things to include are the name of the genus and the name of the cultivar.

Here is a link to a glossary of botanical terms... you can look up simple definitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I have only studied roses in depth and am not a scientist. To give you a very basic overall look at how these terms are used, I checked my favorite rose book by Jack Harkness ... "Roses" ... and have kind of simplified the information.

Plants are divided into families with similar characteristics. For example the family 'Rosaceae' includes almonds, apples, apricots, blackberries, cherries, cotoneaster, geums, hawthorn, medlars, mountain ash, peaches, pears, plums, potentillas, quinces, raspberries, roses, sloes and strawberries and more.

So the "family" is broken down further into separate them further. Each of these subdivisions are called a "genus". The name of the genus for roses is "Rosa"

The next subdivision is into "species" ... which are members of the genus which grow true from seed.

In roses, and I am certain in other plant genera, species roses can cross-pollenate and create a new plant that does not grow true from seed. These are cultivars.

For roses, cultivars, often called varieties, can be created in nature or by man.

In the early days of rose breeding, breeders relied on nature to do the crosses for them and planted roses that they would like to make new roses close together in the hopes that a pollenator would take the pollen from one of the roses to another rose and create a new rose. They would plant the seeds to see "what came up". If a seedling looked good, they had to propagate it by tissue culture because it would not "grow true to seed". It was later in rose development that breeders made deliberate crosses and even longer before they kept records.

I hope this helps a bit.

Smiles,
Lyn

In botany the term variety ( written var ) is a term used for plants that are slightly different from the original plant, but with differences not significant enough to be classified as a subspecies. These are not cross pollinations are hybrids, but naturally occurring variations. Plants produced by cross pollination in nature are hybrids written with an X, such as Iris X nelsonii. Plants created in a cultivated environment is called a cultivar, which is short for cultivated variety. It does not matter the method used. Whether it was manual, with tweezers, or q-tips, or if it was by "natural" methods, such as placing plants close together and allowing bees or wind to pollinate them. These types of plant are called cultivars.

Thanks, Jay. The book I used as a reference is probably dated when compared to current usage.

Smiles,
Lyn

I am curious about how to determine what's what based on how the name is wirtten.
Am I understainding it correcly when I think the following is how it goes?

The first word is Capitalized and is the genus
The lower case words after that are the species
The words in quote marks is the Culivator

Okay, thanks for all the information. I have marked this page so I can refer to it again, and you know I will. For some reason the database entries bring me to my knees!

Mindy03 said:I am curious about how to determine what's what based on how the name is wirtten.
Am I understainding it correcly when I think the following is how it goes?

The first word is Capitalized and is the genus
The lower case words after that are the species
The words in quote marks is the Culivator

almost right.... Cultivar, not Cultivator...

Thanks Hetty I always misspell that word

And I should add that there should only be ONE species name. There can be 'qualifiers' such as subspecies or variations though.

Examples: Pachypodium baronii var. windsorii or Pachypodium rosulatum subsp. makayense

Here is an article written by Dave that you should find helpful:
Let's Learn About Botanical Names for Plants

That's a great article, Dave. Thank you.

Smiles,
Lyn