I have no idea what people do when they discover a new plant. Are there registers? What's the process for determining if it's a new species or hybrid or whatever?
Well, you can contact nurseries (like Terra Nova) directly. There are also people called plant breeders agents who work to market plants for people (eg: www.planthaven.com, www.plantsnouveau.com) But before you do any of that, you want to do your homework -- find out if your new plant is really significantly different from plants currently on the market. You want to try growing it over a number of seasons to be sure it performs well consistently. If you have a plant you think could be marketable, you want to make sure you don't give it to anyone without a special legal contract, or you can make the plant impossible to patent.
I just discovered some oxalis growing wild in my backyard. They don't seem to follow a planting pattern, and they must be well-adapted because they're growing in horribly neglected parts of my yard. They don't look like anything I've come across in the market, and so I'm wondering if this is a new species. Part of me thinks it's very unlikely, but the backyard has been neglected for years and could possibly harbor some oddities that were allowed to go crazy. I probably have hundreds of bulbs. Even if I haven't made some magical discovery, I'm still curious about how I would go about identifying this plant and, if it's new, go about naming it.
You could ask Greg Grant at Texas Gardener magazine. He discovered Martha B. Gonzalez rose, Big Mama Turks cap and Henry and Anna Duelberg Salvias and other plants. He finds most of his plants in cemetarys and around old homesteads.
good question! do you have one?
ReplyDeleteGo to Terra Nova Nurseries and email Dan Heims. terranovanurseries.com He'll get you started.
ReplyDeleteWell, you can contact nurseries (like Terra Nova) directly. There are also people called plant breeders agents who work to market plants for people (eg: www.planthaven.com, www.plantsnouveau.com) But before you do any of that, you want to do your homework -- find out if your new plant is really significantly different from plants currently on the market. You want to try growing it over a number of seasons to be sure it performs well consistently. If you have a plant you think could be marketable, you want to make sure you don't give it to anyone without a special legal contract, or you can make the plant impossible to patent.
ReplyDeleteI just discovered some oxalis growing wild in my backyard. They don't seem to follow a planting pattern, and they must be well-adapted because they're growing in horribly neglected parts of my yard. They don't look like anything I've come across in the market, and so I'm wondering if this is a new species. Part of me thinks it's very unlikely, but the backyard has been neglected for years and could possibly harbor some oddities that were allowed to go crazy. I probably have hundreds of bulbs. Even if I haven't made some magical discovery, I'm still curious about how I would go about identifying this plant and, if it's new, go about naming it.
ReplyDeleteYou could ask Greg Grant at Texas Gardener magazine. He discovered Martha B. Gonzalez rose, Big Mama Turks cap and Henry and Anna Duelberg Salvias and other plants. He finds most of his plants in cemetarys and around old homesteads.
ReplyDelete