Last week I looked at Genus and Species.
Today – Family and then subspecies, variety, form and Cultivar. And the x.
I find it confusing. It’s like to trying to work out the whole second cousin twice removed thing but with the addition of weird spelling, abbreviations, italics, capitalization and a well of different fonts.
So this is my Janet and John (siblings) version.
A Family is the widest grouping. Where like hang out with like at the broadest level of categorisation, where genus come together leaving their differences at the door. This group have also splashed out in some unifying brand identity. I.e. family names often end in – aceae.
That’s the easy bit.
We then come to what happens when you pop yourself down on the sofa, cup of tea and Rich Tea on the side and a species photo album hefted onto your lap to flick through.
- Subspecies (subsp)
- Varietas/variety (var)
- Forma/form (f)
- Cultivars (cultivated varieties)
They’re all there.
Subspecies, varietas and forma are plants from the same species but which have one or more distinctive characteristics that require noting and acknowledging. Natures’ tweaks and new product launches.
Cultivars are what happen when man steps in to create a species with a twist.
And gets to name it; the reason why rose catalogues can read like the cast list for end of pier panto.
And then there’s the x in the middle of a plant name which is the result of different species within a genus getting together and creating a hybrid.
All I can say is where’s a Ladybird book when you need one ?
