By Lois Scott, Master Gardener

The term “nativar”, while not a scientific term, is being used to describe native plants that have been cultivated by horticulturalists.  So, what exactly is a cultivated plant or cultivar?  A cultivar is a plant that has been bred for specific characteristics such as improved growth habit, specific leaf colour, flower colour, or disease resistance to list a few examples.  Many cultivars are sterile, meaning they do not produce seeds or if they do produce seed, the seed will likely not produce a plant identical to the parent plant. 

The way to identify a cultivar of a native plant or “nativar”, is by looking at the plant name.  If you check out the photos of plant tags, you will see one for the straight species native plant (not a cultivar) that gives both the common name, False Indigo and the scientific name, Baptisia australis.  The other tag is for a Baptisia cultivar named ‘Cherries Jubilee’.  ‘Cherries Jubilee’ is the cultivar name.  The cultivar name is usually in single quotation marks.

There are a number of very important reasons to plant straight species native plants in our gardens including the support of pollinators.  The question is, do native cultivars support pollinators in the same way? 

Annie White, a researcher at the University of Vermont has found “that changing flower size, colour or shape changed the availability and/or quality of pollen and nectar offered by the flower which negatively impacted pollinators” and “the more manipulated the cultivars became, the less attractive they became to pollinators”.  To read more about Annie’s research and results check out this link.  https://pollinatorgardens.org/2013/02/08/my-research/

If you are looking for pollinator-friendly native plants that are not cultivars check out nurseries that specialize in native plants such as Peterborough’s Ecology Park.  https://www.greenup.on.ca/ecology-park/  

When at the garden centre, you will now know how to distinguish a straight species such as Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) from an Echinacea cultivar like Echinacea purpurea ‘Razzmatazz’.