What's Actually on a Plant Tag? Cultivar Names, Hybrids, and NOID Explained
If you have spent any time in the collector plant world, you have probably noticed that plant names can get complicated quickly. Two plants that look similar might have completely different names. A plant you bought as one thing gets listed somewhere else as something slightly different. And occasionally you will see a listing that just says NOID, with no further explanation.
None of this is arbitrary. There is a system behind how plants get named, and understanding the basics makes you a more confident collector, a better shopper, and less likely to be misled by vague or incorrect labeling.
The Species Name
Every plant name starts with a two-part Latin name: the genus and the species. Monstera deliciosa. Philodendron gloriosum. Anthurium warocqueanum. The genus comes first and is always capitalized. The species comes second and is always lowercase. Both are written in italics when formatted correctly.
The species name tells you the fundamental identity of the plant. It describes a naturally occurring organism with a consistent set of characteristics. Two plants of the same species, grown on opposite sides of the world, should be recognizably the same plant.
This is the foundation that everything else builds on.
What a Cultivar Name Actually Means
A cultivar is a plant variety that has been selected or developed by humans and given a formal name to distinguish it from the standard species. Cultivar names are written in single quotes after the species name. Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation'. Philodendron 'Florida Beauty'. The single quotes are not decorative. They are part of the official naming convention and signal that the name refers to a specific cultivated form.
To earn a cultivar name, a plant typically needs to display a consistent, distinguishing characteristic and demonstrate that this characteristic is stable through propagation. That second part matters. A plant that looks unusual once does not qualify. The trait has to reliably carry forward when the plant is propagated, either vegetatively or through tissue culture. This is why we use Crème Brûlée as a cultivar designation for specific Thai Constellation specimens rather than applying it broadly to any well-variegated plant. The expression has to be both exceptional and proven stable before the name applies.
Cultivar names are also not interchangeable with descriptive nicknames. Just because a plant looks like it could be called something does not mean it is. In the collector world there is a lot of informal naming that gets repeated until it sounds official. When we use a cultivar name, it means something specific about the plant's verified genetics and expression.
What the × Symbol Means
When you see a × in a plant name, it means the plant is a hybrid between two species. Philodendron × joepii, for example, is a natural hybrid between two distinct Philodendron species. The × is not pronounced. It is a notation that signals crossed parentage.
Hybrids can occur naturally in the wild when two compatible species grow in overlapping ranges, or they can be deliberately produced by breeders. Some of the most sought-after collector plants are hybrids, particularly in the Anthurium world where intentional crossing is used to combine desirable traits from multiple parent plants.
An important distinction: a hybrid is not the same as a cultivar, though a hybrid can be given a cultivar name if its characteristics are consistent and stable. A hybrid just tells you about parentage. A cultivar name tells you about a specific, selected form of that plant.
What NOID Means
NOID stands for no identification. It is used when a plant cannot be given a reliable species or cultivar name, either because its origins are unknown, its identity has not been formally verified, or it does not match any named form closely enough to justify a label.
You will often see NOID on plants that were propagated from unlabeled stock, imported without documentation, or discovered as unusual mutations before they were formally named. It is an honest label. It means the seller does not know exactly what the plant is and is not willing to guess.
NOID is not inherently a red flag. Some genuinely interesting plants circulate under NOID labels simply because the naming has not caught up with the plant. What matters is whether the seller can describe what they actually know about the plant's characteristics, care requirements, and origin, even if the formal name is not yet established.
What is a red flag is a plant sold under a specific cultivar name that it does not actually qualify for. Misapplied names are more common than NOID labels in the collector market, and they cause more confusion because they sound authoritative.
Mint Monstera is a good example of how NOID naming can take on a life of its own. The NOID designation here refers specifically to the plant's morphology. It is a Monstera deliciosa intermediate form, meaning it sits between two recognized forms without matching either closely enough to be formally identified. Because no established name existed for it, collectors began calling it NOID Mint, with the mint part describing the coloration that commonly appears in this intermediate form. That nickname circulated long enough and widely enough that it effectively became the common name, and subsequent nicknames like Jungle Mint followed. Most collectors and sellers now use these names as if they were cultivar designations. They are not, but they are not dishonest in context either. They communicate something real and recognizable about the plant. What matters is understanding that NOID Mint describes a type based on form and color, not a verified cultivar with stable, documented genetics.
A Note on Grex Names
If you follow orchid culture at all, you may have encountered grex naming. In orchids, a grex name is given to an entire cross between two parent plants, meaning every seedling from that pairing shares the grex name regardless of how different the individual plants look from one another. It is a recognized convention in orchid horticulture specifically.
Grex naming does not apply to aroids. In aroid hybridization, including Anthuriums and Philodendrons, you cannot give a single cultivar name to an entire batch of hybrid seedlings. Every seedling from a cross is genetically unique, and individual plants within the same cross can vary dramatically in leaf size, color, texture, and growth habit. Calling all of them the same name would make the name meaningless.
The correct approach in aroids is to select exceptional individuals from a cross, evaluate them for consistency and stability, and name them individually if they meet the criteria for a cultivar designation. This is how serious breeders work, and it is how we approach naming in our own program.
You will occasionally see sellers apply a single name to an entire batch of hybrid seedlings in the aroid market, often borrowing the logic of orchid grex naming without acknowledging that the convention does not transfer. When you see this, it is worth asking whether the name refers to a specific verified plant or simply to the cross it came from.
Why "Variegated" Alone Tells You Almost Nothing
Variegated is a description of a trait, not a name. Calling a plant a variegated Monstera tells you it has two or more colors in its leaves. It does not tell you which Monstera it is, what type of variegation it carries, how stable that variegation is, or whether it is a recognized cultivar or a random mutation of unknown origin.
In a market where variegation is one of the primary drivers of value, this matters. Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation' and Monstera deliciosa Albo Variegata are both variegated Monsteras. They are fundamentally different plants with different genetics, different care requirements, different price points, and different behaviors over time. Variegated tells you almost nothing that is useful about either of them.
The same applies across genera. Variegated Philodendron. Variegated Scindapsus. Variegated Anthurium. These are descriptions, not identifications. When you are buying a collector plant, the name should be specific enough to tell you exactly what you are getting and allow you to verify it.
How We Label at RPF
When we sell a plant under a species name, it is because we are confident in the identification. When we use a cultivar name, it is because the plant meets the criteria for that designation. When the identity is uncertain or not yet formally established, we say so.
You will also see Grower's Choice listings in our shop, which means you are selecting a plant from a group of the same cultivar and we will choose a representative specimen for you. The cultivar name still applies to every plant in that group. What varies is the individual expression, which is something that will always vary within any cultivar because plants are living things.
If you are ever unsure about what a name on one of our listings means, the care and description section on each product page will tell you what we know about that plant's identity, genetics, and characteristics.
Browse our full collection at rareplantfairy.com/collections/all-plants.