Cultivar

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Cultivar

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:48 pm

• cultivar •

Pronunciation: kêl-tê-vahr • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A plant variety that is produced by selective breeding specifically for human beings and is maintained by cultivation. A cultivar is noted in its botanical name by single quotes, as in Dahlia 'Akita'.
Image
Notes: The difference between a cultivar and a hybrid is that the latter may either reproduce or not. A cultivar must be cultivatable, which is to say, it must readily reproduce. Also, a hybrid may mix varieties for any reason; a cultivar results from two varieties that have properties that are desirable to humans, such as hardiness and beauty, or nutritional value and disease resistance.

In Play: Floral hybrids tend to be barren, so we might hear someone say, "I don't have any barren hybrids in my garden, only cultivars and natural varieties." A cultivar must be imagined before it can be developed: "A caffeine-free coffee cultivar would be a welcome variety for people who are not buzz-tolerant."

Word History: We know the exact source of today's Good Word: Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American horticulturist, botanist and cofounder of the American Society for Horticultural Science. He introduced the word in a pamphlet entitled BSPB Plant Breeding, published by the British Society of Plant Breeders in 1923. It is a blend of cultivate + variety. Cultivate was borrowed from Latin cultivare "to till", from Latin cultus "tilled", past participle of colere "to till". We can see many English borrowings from various Latin words based on this verb, including cult, culture, colony and inculcate, from the figurative sense of "till the mind" that the word took on in Late Latin. (Norman Holler of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, suggested a word that led our investigations to today's Good Word. We owe him a debt of gratitude for that.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

George Kovac

Re: Cultivar

Postby George Kovac » Wed Mar 04, 2015 11:35 am

<<inculcate, from the figurative sense of "till the mind" that the word took on in Late Latin. >>

That beautiful metaphoric borrowing reminded me of a favorite image from Charles Frazier's novel "Cold Mountain." Throughout the book Frazier wrote vividly of the land and the native plants and chosen crops which inhabited it. One of the protagonists is an intrepid woman who knows how to live off the land and to take care of the farm while the menfolk are away during the Civil War. In one scene she is perplexed by a problem and needs to take a moment to puzzle out a solution. Frazier describes her as "rowing up her thoughts" as if she was doing the same purposeful and logical work as when she planted her crops.


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