Individual Cultivar/Species Lists - These are lists of individual "Top Parent" hostas who have 5 or more named cultivars where they acted as pod parent, pollen parent or sport mother. It includes both cultivars and species

Complex Cross - (H. 'Blue Angel' × H. 'Big Daddy') × H. 'Amos' is a  form of a complex cross in the hybridizing of hostas. In this example, we know that the pollen (father) is 'Amos'. However, we only know the grandparents on the pod side and do NOT know the name of the actual pod parent. Technically the parentage of this hosta should read pod parent unknown and pollen parent H. 'Amos'

Unknown Parentage - Occasionally, neither the pod or pollen parent have been identified for a cultivar. Perhaps the person harvested some seeds from random plants in their garden or at a horticulture garden. The seeds may have been a gift from someone who lost track of their origin.

We have the names of nearly 1,000 people associated with the creation or introduction of at least one new hosta cultivar in the Hosta Helper Database. Some of these carefully apply the pollen from one plant to the pistil of another plant with specific goals in mind for the next generation. Others randomly collect seeds from bee pollinated plants, grow the seeds and select the best for naming. Many people discover spontaneously occurring sports in their gardens while plant nurseries discover new sport cultivars during the high-tech propagation process called tissue culture.