Plant Names
There seems to be no end to the different names you hear plants called. Here are some common terms and their definitions.
Annuals
Plant these for long-lasting blooms, cut flowers, or food – most vegetables. Annuals won’t survive winter outdoors.
Perennials
Grow these for year after year blooms and foliage. Some vegetables are perennial – for example, asparagus.
Biennials
These take two years to bloom. They bloom and produce seeds in their second year and die off. Plant seeds/plants two years in a row for continuous bloom or fruit.
*Vegetables can be all the above. Most of the ones we grow are treated as annuals, but some are planted in the fall and overwinter and produce during the following year. The same with some fruits – raspberries are perennial with biennial canes and some strawberries are annual, some are perennial.
Latin Names
If you remember back to Biology class and learning about Kingdom, Phylum, Class etc., you may recall genus species is how we separate biological organisms. The genus species for a plant is its Latin Name and is specific to the plant.
Common Names
Common Names are names that have been made up to describe different plants. These can cause confusion if two different plants have the same common name or when one plant has several common names. These names will change from region to region as well. For example, Centaurea montana is known as Mountain Bluet, Mountain Cornflower, Perennial Cornflower, and Perennial Bachelor’s Button. There are likely more…
Varieties
Varieties are naturally occurring variations in a plant’s physical traits.
Cultivars
Cultivars are man-made, cultivated variations to the original plant’s physical traits. Plants are bred a plant to produce different, desirable characteristics. Cultivar names follow the Latin name in single quotations. Some common tomato cultivars are Roma, Beefsteak, or Tiny Tim.
Hybrids
Hybrids are crosses between varieties or species. They are identified with an X following the genus of the two crossed plants and then the name of the hybrid. For the hardy hybrid David Thompson Explorer series rose, you would write: Rosa x ‘David Thompson’.
