362 articles
Grevillea cultivars
Grevillea cultivars are named garden forms of the Australian genus Grevillea that must be propagated by cuttings or grafting, since seed does not come true.
Guajillo chili
Guajillo chili, the dried mirasol pepper (Capsicum annuum), is Mexico's second most used dried chile after the ancho: tangy, fruity, bright red, 2,500–5,000 SHU, used in salsas, adobos, birria, and tamales.
Guar (ग्वार)
Guar (ग्वार), also called clusterbean or guar bean, is an annual legume grown chiefly in India for guar gum from its seeds, used in food, oil drilling, and hydraulic fracturing.
Habanero
Habanero, a cultivar group of Capsicum chinense from the Amazon Basin, is a very hot chili at 100,000–350,000 SHU with fruity aroma, domesticated over 6,000 years, centered in Mexico's Yucatán.
Hass avocado
The Hass avocado is a commercial avocado cultivar, patented in 1935, that grew from a chance seedling planted by Rudolph Hass in La Habra Heights, California, in 1926.
Heirloom plant
Heirloom plant: an open-pollinated cultivar, typically 50 to several hundred years old, whose seed is saved and passed down through generations. Comes true from seed, unlike F1 hybrids; valued for flavor, heritage, and crop diversity.
Heirloom tomato
Heirloom tomato, an open-pollinated tomato variety passed down 50+ years or introduced commercially before 1940; saved seed grows true to type, unlike hybrids; valued for flavor and color, with lower yields and disease resistance.
Hibiscus 'Kopper King'
Hibiscus 'Kopper King' (Hibiscus moscheutos 'Kopper King') is a Fleming-brothers hardy hibiscus cultivar, PP 10,793, with copper-red foliage and 10-12 inch white-pink red-eyed flowers, hardy to zone 4.
Honeycrisp
Honeycrisp (MN 1711) is a crisp, juicy apple cultivar released by the University of Minnesota in 1991; DNA later confirmed parentage Keepsake × MN1627. It became a top US variety, Minnesota State Fruit in 2006, and parent of Cosmic Crisp, SweeTango, and others.
Honeydew (melon)
Honeydew melon (Cucumis melo var. inodorus), a smooth-rinded winter melon with sweet green flesh; stored at 7-10°C, harvested at 10° Brix minimum, also called the Wallace melon in China.
Honeynut squash
Honeynut squash, a personal-sized butternut-type winter squash (Cucurbita moschata hybrid), bred at Cornell by Robinson, Jahn, and Mazourek with chef Dan Barber; released 2015, sweeter with 2-3x the beta-carotene of butternut and edible thin skin.
Hottest chili pepper
Hottest chili pepper: Pepper X, bred by Ed Currie of PuckerButt Pepper Company, holds the Guinness record since October 2023 at 2,693,000 SHU average, dethroning the Carolina Reaper (1.64 million SHU).
Houseplant
Houseplant: an indoor container plant, mostly tropical species grown for decoration and wellbeing. Key species include snake plant, pothos, peace lily, and ZZ plant; NASA air-cleaning claims do not scale to real rooms.
Huabancai
Huabancai (滑板菜) is a wild mountain vegetable from the climbing perennial vine Parabaena sagittata, typically stir-fried or cooked with meat in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, where dwindling wild supplies prompted a patented cutting-propagation method.
Huangge Rong
黄葛榕 (Ficus virens, also 黄葛树/黄桷树/大叶榕) is a large deciduous fig of Moraceae native to south and southwest China; Chongqing's city tree and namesake of Huangguoshu Waterfall.
Huckleberry
Huckleberry is a common name for berries of two Ericaceae genera: Gaylussacia (true eastern huckleberries, 10 hard seeds) and western Vaccinium species such as Vaccinium membranaceum, the commercially important Pacific Northwest black huckleberry.
Hyacinthus orientalis
Hyacinthus orientalis, common or Dutch hyacinth, a bulbous geophyte native from southern Türkiye to northern Israel, source of all garden hyacinth cultivars; fragrant spring spikes, Dutch bulb trade history, forcing culture, mildly toxic bulbs.
Hybrid (biology)
Hybrid (biology): offspring of genetically distinct parents, often different species. Plant hybrids show sterility or inviability, drive speciation via polyploidy or introgression, and power heterosis in hybrid crops.
Hybrid larch
Hybrid larch, also called Dunkeld larch, is the hybrid of European larch and Japanese larch, first recognized at Dunkeld, Scotland, in 1905 and grown for timber because it outgrows both parents.
Hybrid maize
Hybrid maize is corn produced by crossing two genetically distinct inbred parent lines; first published in 1908, it spread across nearly all US corn acreage by 1960.
Hybrid rice
Hybrid rice: F1 rice from crosses of distinct parents exploiting heterosis, developed in China from Yuan Longping's 1960 work; three-line CMS, two-line EGMS, and third-generation GMS systems cover about half of China's rice area.
Hybrid tea rose
The hybrid tea rose is a class of modern garden rose bred from tea roses and hybrid perpetuals, the classic long-stemmed rose of florists and cutting gardens.
Iceberg lettuce
Iceberg lettuce, also called crisphead (Lactuca sativa var. capitata), is a tight-headed, 95%-water lettuce named for ice-cooled rail shipping. Lower in nutrients than romaine; linked to the record 2026 U.S. Cyclospora outbreak.
International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants
The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), also called the Cultivated Plant Code, regulates cultivar, Group, grex, and graft-chimaera names, with its ninth edition published in 2016.
International Cultivar Registration Authority
International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA): an ISHS-appointed body recording cultivar names under the ICNCP. Voluntary, non-statutory; examples include the RHS (nine groups, 4,000+ names yearly), KAVB, and APGA.
Interspecific stone fruit hybrids
Interspecific stone fruit hybrids are crosses between Prunus species, chiefly plum, apricot, peach, and nectarine, including plumcots, peacotums, and the trademarked Zaiger Pluot and Aprium lines bred in California.
Introgression
Introgression: permanent transfer of genes between species via hybridization and repeated backcrossing, coined by Edgar Anderson; includes adaptive introgression, detection methods, crop breeding uses, and transgene risks.
Jalapeño
Jalapeño (chile jalapeño), a Capsicum annuum cultivar group named for Xalapa, Veracruz; moderate 2,000-8,000 SHU heat, mild TAM and NuMex cultivars, chipotle and pickled products.
Jimmy Nardello Pepper
Jimmy Nardello pepper, also called Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Pepper, an heirloom Capsicum annuum from Ruoti, Basilicata, brought to Connecticut in 1887; heatless, thin-walled red pods prized for frying and preserved via Seed Savers Exchange and Slow Food's Ark of Taste.
Kabocha
Kabocha (カボチャ) is a Japanese-bred winter squash of Cucurbita maxima, named via Portuguese traders bringing squash from Cambodia; small, dark green, sweet, starchy, with half of Japan's 100,000–200,000 ton squash crop grown in Hokkaido.