
Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum – Kannah Creek® buckwheat, courtesy Plant Select
native, ‘nativar’, variety, subspecies, selection, hybrid, and why you might care
Eriogonum umbellatum. Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum ‘Kannah Creek’. Aquilegia chrysantha. Aquilegia chrysantha ‘Denver Gold’. Physocarpus monogynus ‘Greylock’. Prunus besseyi ‘Pawnee Buttes’. Shepherdia argentea ‘Silver Totem’. Gaillardia aristata. Gaillardia aristata ‘Meriwether’. Gaillardia aristata BoCo. Gaillardia x grandiflora “Mesa Yellow’. Asclepias incarnata. Asclepias incarnata ‘Cinderella’.
What are gardeners to think when they encounter these plant names? What do the names mean? How can you tell if this plant is the same as its kind that grows in the wild? Is it a native or a “nativar”? What are “nativars” and are they undesirable? How can you tell if they will attract and support the beneficial insects or pollinators they’re supposed to? What is a ‘selection’? How can you tell if a plant is a hybrid? Are hybrids bad? All of this can be confusing and daunting, but I will attempt to make it easier to understand.
Plants found in nature have generally been given a two-part Latin/Greek name, like Eriogonum umbellatum. The name is typically descriptive of the plant’s characteristics. ‘Eriogonum’, from Greek meaning ‘wooly joints’ is the Genus name, and ‘umbellatum’, meaning ‘flowers are arranged in an umbel’, is the species name. The Genus classification ‘Eriogonum’ is shared by many other species that each have different characteristics.
But you may see a third part to the name, called a subspecies (ssp.) or a variety (var. or v.). Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum is an example. It means that there are distinct forms even within a defined species that differ from one another but aren’t seen as different enough to be regarded as separate species. Subspecies and varieties are often separated geographically and evolved with slightly different characteristics in response to different climatic and geologic conditions.
Beyond this, a plant that’s being produced and promoted in the nursery trade may have an additional name, that we usually present in quotation marks. In the case of Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum ‘Kannah Creek’, the name was added by Plant Select, the organization that introduced this and many other western native plants to commerce. From the variety growing in the vicinity of Kannah Creek (~25 miles south of Grand Junction), they selected the plants with the best fall/winter foliage coloration, the best vigor and form, planted them in ‘trial gardens’ to evaluate their garden performance over several years, and had them propagated to introduce to gardeners in Colorado and beyond. They have not manipulated or changed the plant’s genetics in any way. It is called a selection. Pollinators, insects and wildlife will recognize it as a native.

Oenothera macrocarpa subsp. incana, ‘Silver Blade’
Most ‘selections’ are chosen for some unique characteristic of stature, form, quantity or quality of bloom or fruit, foliage or flower color or markings. Many (but not all) of these are propagated by vegetative methods – cuttings, divisions, grafts, or tissue culture, in order to maintain their special characteristics. Others are multiplied by seed and selected though successive generations to eliminate from the gene pool any plants that don’t exhibit the special characteristic for which the selection was chosen. Some other selections of native plants of our region are: ‘Silver Totem’ Buffaloberry, ‘Pawnee Buttes’ Sandcherry, ‘Fandango’ Arizona Cypress, ‘Prairie Lode’ Sundrops, Coreopsis lanceolata ‘Sterntaler’, ‘Blonde Ambition’ Grama Grass, ‘Baby Blue’ Rabbitbrush, ‘Woodward’ Columnar Rocky Mt. Juniper, ‘Autumn Sapphire’ Sand Sage, ‘Half Pint’ compact Pineleaf Penstemon, ‘Silver Blade’ Evening Primrose, ‘Shimmer’ Evening Primrose. There are many more. These selections are natives.

Gaillardia aristata, Blanket Flower, Firewheel
Gaillardia aristata (common name Blanket Flower or Firewheel) is native to most western states, the upper Great Plains, and portions of New England. Its coloration and petal shape varies in different locales. The best-known form has a dark red central disc (the raised center) surrounded by golden-yellow petals with a wide ring of dark red across the petals. Not exactly a selection: In the Boulder area (I don’t know how far its range extends), Gaillardia aristata has red disc and golden-yellow ray flowers (the petals surrounding the central disc). There is sometimes a narrow ring of red adjacent to the disc. When we grow it from seeds we have collected locally, from a small gene-pool, we add BoCo to the name. When we buy the seeds for this form from suppliers, they come with the name ‘Meriwether’, in honor of Capt. Meriwether Lewis, co-leader of the historic Lewis & Clark expedition. BoCo and Meriwether Gaillardia plants have the same characteristics.
At Harlequin’s Gardens, we offer as many native plants as we can. We have permits to collect some wild seeds in our local area and we indicate plants grown from these by labeling them ‘BoCo’ or ‘Boulder County’. On our description signs, we identify plants as being native to Colorado, or being native to our ‘region’. This definition is fairly soft, but it generally means the ‘interior West’, and can include Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Within the region there are many plants that grow well here because our soil, geology, climate and ecosystem partners are similar. There may be cases in which a ‘regional native’ plant will grow here, but not set seed successfully because a particular pollinator or soil component is lacking in our locale.’ There is much more to be said here, but we’re trying to keep it simple.
Let’s turn now to the plants that have been termed ‘nativars’. These plants have been manipulated through breeding and hybridizing to change some characteristic, usually color, size, or bloom season. Studies have been conducted in recent years on a limited number of north American native plants to see whether manipulations in color, etc. have had a significant effect on the relationships between the plants and the native insects, birds and wildlife with which their species evolved. Observations made in these studies have been inconclusive, but one can assume that changes in characteristics like the length of a flower tube or the positions of the sexual parts of the flower could affect the ability of its natural pollinator(s) to pollinate it successfully. A study conducted for the Morton Arboretum altering the color of Phlox paniculata (Tall Garden Phlox) flowers has not proved detrimental to its relationships with pollinators or wildlife.
However, There are some cases where changing the flower color can affect pollinators. Gaillardia x grandiflora ‘Burgundy’ is entirely dark red. Some years back, we read about a study that found this color change made the Gaillardia Flower Moth, whose wing patterns and colors mimic blanket flower petals, vulnerable to predation because it was no longer camouflaged.
In botanical names, if you see a genus and species followed by an ‘x’ and then another species name, you’re looking at a hybrid. In horticulture, the name might be reduced to the genus and species (or just the genus), and a trade name or registered trademark name.

Opuntia, ‘Colorado Sunset’ WALK IN BEAUTY, courtesy DBG
Hybrids occur in nature all the time, with many wild plants able to successfully cross with other species in their genus that occur in the same locale, resulting in new hybrid plants that may or may not function in their ecosystem with equal success. In horticulture, the success and ecosystem value of hybrids hasn’t historically been evaluated. But we do know from our own experience, for example, that the stunning repeat-blooming prickly pear cactus varieties hybridized by Denver breeder Kelly Grummons attract vast hordes of native bees when in bloom.