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 Schmid (1991)
made a major effort to bring better organization to the members of the
genus, Hosta. He made changes to some basic
concepts such as changing plants that were historically
thought to be species into cultivar status. Schmid also
created groupings of hostas that were traditionally
treated as separate cultivars but, in his opinion, were
so similar that they may actually be the same plant with
different names. Finally, he also expounded on the
creation and lineage of the Tardiana group of blue-green
hostas created by
Eric Smith of England.
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The key reason for
changing a hosta's status was that there was no evidence
that these plants ever existed as natural, "wild" populations. In
fact, it appears that most of them were actually plants developed in
nurseries by selection or through seedling propagation of crosses of
unknown plants. This happened back in previous centuries in either
their native Asian lands or after they had been brought to Europe
and no records were kept on the plant's true history.
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In 2010, Schmid took a further step and changed the status of H.
sieboldiana to the cultivar H. 'Sieboldiana'. This was accepted by
The American Hosta Society but there are still a few hosta experts
who feel that this plant does exist in the wilds of Japan.
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Schmid (1991)
found that certain hostas that have the same parentage
or lineage are identical or nearly identical to each
other. These plants may have been originated in several
different places and were each given a different name
even though their physical traits may be the same.
Schmid divided hostas known at the time his book was
published that would fall into the following categories.:
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The so-called Tardiana
hostas were created by Eric Smith of England in the
1960's. Read more under the About the Tardianas link
below.
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