Remember that cultivated varieties or cultivars are not the same 

as botanical varieties and so the rules for naming cultivars is 

different

•

Cultivar names are not italicized, are written inside single 
quotes, and should 

not

be in Latin although many break this 

rule

•

Cultivar names can often be two or three words long and 
usually describe some feature for which they’re named

•

For example, 

Arctostaphylos pajaroensis

‘Paradise’ is a 

particularly beautiful form of the species.

•

You will also often see a label with the genus named followed 
by a cultivar, without the specific epithet, such as 

Ceanothus

‘Dark Star’ This is often because the parentage of some 
cultivars is not known