Native, Cultivar, Variety, Invasive..What's the difference?
Osteospermum 'Pink Whirls' is a cultivar selected for its intriguing and colorful flowers.
There's so much to learn when starting your native plant journey and all of the terminology around plants can be overwhelming. You've got natives of course, but then there's cultivars, varieties or nativars and invasive species, just to name a few. In this blog, we'd like to clear up some of the confusion there is around these types of plants and show you why it is almost always better to plant natives!
When you first start your gardening journey, it's only a matter of time before you become overwhelmed with the many different plant terms. Even more so since many people use the terms differently. To help clear up some of that confusion, let's start with some simple definitions:
Native – This refers to a plant that is endemic and has co-evolved in a local area or region. In North America, it is a plant that was present in a region prior to the arrival of European settlers.
Variety or Nativar – This refers to a native plant that was found naturally in the wild with a distinct mutation, such as flower color or size, that can reproduce itself via seed. It is natural, and was ‘selected’ for propagation due to a certain physical characteristic.
Cultivar – A cultivar is a kind of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root cuttings, stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, or carefully controlled seed production. Most cultivars arise from purposeful human manipulation. These plants cannot be found in the wild and are not natural.
Invasive– An invasive plant is one that is not native to a particular area. These plants grows aggressively, spread, and displaces other plants which causes great environmental harm to the new area it's been introduced to.
A cultivar of the orchid genus Oncidium. Picture by JJ Harrison
Many plants marketed as “natives” in garden centers have never actually grown naturally in the wild. For example, a native cultivar - a plant that has been cultivated by humans for a desirable trait from a native plant - might be marked as a native plant. The word cultivar means that it is a cultivated variety and to meet the definition of a cultivar, a plant must be bred asexually. Typically these plants are not found in nature and don't offer as many benefits to the wildlife as true natives.
There are big differences in the impact these different types of plants have on pollinators and wildlife in general. Even though Nativars share many traits with their wild source species, they are sometimes missing a big component of what makes them work for non-human elements of the natural world. For example, in many cases, cultivars are sterile, and will not make seeds, which can reduce their value in the wider ecosystem. Cultivars often have reduced nutritional benefits as well, and haven’t been studied enough to identify those which may be harming pollinators by providing reduced nutritional resources. All in all, I think it's hard to argue that natives are simply the best.
Ampelopsis brevipedunculata is an invasive species that endangers wildlife in NJ. Picture by Olivier Vanpé.