# Nativars or straight species: what wildlife gets from each

> How cultivars of native shrubs and trees compare with the wild species for caterpillars, bees and birds, which bred traits cost them, and when one is fine.

Published 2026-10-28. Tags: Forests & habitat, What to plant. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/nativars-or-straight-species/

A nativar feeds wildlife about as well as the wild plant when breeding changed only its size, its shape or its resistance to disease. Leaves bred red or purple feed fewer caterpillars, and doubled or sterile flowers leave bees less pollen and nectar and birds less seed. Most nativars are also copies of a single plant. Seedlings of the straight species each differ a little, and that variety is what lets a species adapt.

![Dark reddish purple ninebark leaves, lobed and toothed, around clusters of round green flower buds](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/nativars-or-straight-species-1-1000.jpg?v=4ec2cf1f "Ninebark 'Diabolo' in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 6, 2008. Its leaves were bred reddish purple, and insects eat less of leaves bred away from green.")
*Photo: Photo by David J. Stang, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APhysocarpus_opulifolius_Diabolo_0zz.jpg))*

## What a nativar is

A nativar is a cultivar of a native species, chosen for one trait and then copied. Some began as an odd plant found in the wild, but many were bred, and most are kept true by rooting cuttings. Every plant sold under the name is then genetically identical to the first.

A [straight species](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md#straight-species) is the plant as it grows wild. Raised from seed, its seedlings [differ from their parents](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/will-it-come-true-from-seed/index.html.md) and from each other.

People plant natives for the insects their leaves feed and for the pollen and nectar their flowers offer. The trait a breeder chose decides how much of that a nativar still gives.

## Red and purple leaves feed fewer caterpillars

In a University of Delaware trial, native trees and shrubs grew beside their cultivars for two years. The researchers counted the leaf-eating insects on each, measured the damage they did and offered newly hatched bagworm caterpillars a choice of leaves. They tested six bred traits: leaf color, variegation, fall color, habit, disease resistance and fruit size.

Leaves changed from green to red, blue or purple deterred feeding in all three of the trial's experiments. Purple leaves are loaded with anthocyanins, chemicals that deter insect feeding. The other traits showed no consistent pattern, and variegated leaves were even preferred in one test.

> "These results suggest that the usefulness of native cultivars in restoring insect-driven food webs depends on the cultivar trait that has been selected." (Baisden, Tallamy, Narango and Boyle, *Do Cultivars of Native Plants Support Insect Herbivores?*, 2018)

In feeding tests, the ninebark leaf beetle took the green leaves of wild ninebark and the yellow leaves of 'Dart's Gold'. It avoided 'Monlo', the reddish purple ninebark sold as Diabolo.

## Doubled, sterile and recolored flowers give bees less

Bees and other pollinators feed at the flowers, so what a breeder did to the flowers matters most to them. Mt. Cuba Center's trial of wild hydrangea and its cultivars, run from 2017 to 2021, studied the pollinators that visited each. The wild form's small lacecap heads hold hundreds of fertile flowers. Mophead cultivars fill big, dome-shaped heads with sterile flowers and hide only a few fertile ones inside.

> "The species' relatively small lacecap flower heads attracted the second most pollinators of any hydrangea in the trial, far more than the mophead cultivars of *H. arborescens* that have been selected or bred for their large and showy inflorescences." (Mt. Cuba Center, *Hydrangea arborescens*)

A second trial, of six native shrubs and their cultivars, measured the loss in 'Annabelle', the mophead that helped set the standard for the rest. It carried less than half as many fertile flowers as the wild form and drew a third as many bumble bees.

![A large round head of white hydrangea flowers in front of green leaves and paler heads](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/nativars-or-straight-species-2-1000.jpg?v=635a9614 "'Annabelle' wild hydrangea at the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on June 27, 2023. Its round heads are masses of sterile flowers, with few fertile ones hidden inside.")
*Photo: Hameltion, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHydrangea_arborescens_'Annabelle'_at_Coker_Arboretum_02.jpg))*

Doubled coneflowers such as 'Pink Double Delight' go further, with the central cone bred into a pink pompom. Bees and butterflies can hardly gather pollen or nectar from such flowers. Many doubled flowers are sterile too, so they set no seed for goldfinches.

A new flower color can cost visits as well. Bumble bees and leafcutter bees came less often to the pink-flowered 'Pink Beauty' shrubby cinquefoil than to the wild shrub.

## What the trials found, shrub by shrub

Five shrubs from the trials show which changes mattered. We grow the first four, and not shrubby cinquefoil:

| Shrub | Cultivar and its change | What the trial found |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Wild hydrangea](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/wild-hydrangea/index.html.md) | 'Annabelle', a sterile mophead | A third of the wild form's bumble bees |
| [Ninebark](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/ninebark/index.html.md) | 'Monlo', reddish purple leaves | Shunned by its leaf beetle, visited by more hover flies |
| [Sweet pepperbush](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/sweet-pepperbush/index.html.md) | 'Hummingbird', compact | Visits like the wild form's, on denser flowers |
| [Black chokeberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-chokeberry/index.html.md) | Two compact forms | Fewer flower clusters, about as many mining bees per cluster |
| Shrubby cinquefoil | 'Pink Beauty', pink flowers | Fewer bumble bees and leafcutter bees |

## Fruit and seed for birds

Birds eat the fruit and seed, and a nativar can hold back both. A sterile or doubled flower sets no seed. A nativar is also one clone, and where a shrub [needs a partner for fruit](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/why-a-tree-flowers-but-never-fruits/index.html.md), one clone counts as one plant. The [arrowwood viburnum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/arrowwood-viburnum/index.html.md) of garden centers is a compact cultivar grown from cuttings, and one clone alone sets little fruit. Three or more seedlings, each a little different, crop every year.

## One clone or a batch of seedlings

Most nativars are copied from cuttings, so every plant of a name is genetically identical. Planted by the thousand, they carry less genetic diversity than seedlings of the straight species. That leaves the species less able to adapt to disease and a changing climate.

Seed-grown [flowering dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/flowering-dogwood/index.html.md) from wild stands carries far more genetic diversity than the few grafted cultivars sold in garden centers. That diversity matters against anthracnose and powdery mildew, and the [seed source](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/seed-source-and-provenance/index.html.md) of a seedling matters too.

A nativar's pollen also travels. Near one subdivision, wild swamp rose mallow that had bloomed pink and white began to bloom red, a color inherited from cultivars planted nearby.

## When a nativar is fine

For wildlife, a nativar is as good as the straight species when breeding left its leaves, flowers and fruit as they were. A compact or upright form, or one bred to resist disease, made no difference to wildlife in the Delaware work. A larger flower or a shorter habit may be fine too. Pass over four changes:

- **Leaves bred red, blue or purple**, which insects eat less.
- **Doubled flowers and sterile mopheads**, which hold little pollen or nectar and set little or no seed.
- **Flowers bred to a new color**, which bees visited less in the trials.
- **A single clone of a shrub that needs a partner**, which fruits poorly alone.

Some nativars do a species good. Elms bred to resist Dutch elm disease are among them, good news for the [American elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-elm/index.html.md) that the disease has devastated. So some nativars are as good as the seed-grown species for wildlife, and the bred trait tells which. None carries the genetic variety of a batch of seedlings.

## Where to start

A plant tag tells you which you have. A cultivar's name follows the botanical name in quotation marks, as in Physocarpus opulifolius 'Monlo', while a straight species carries the botanical name alone.

Blue Whale Trees grows every tree and shrub it sells from seed, so each plant is the straight species and no two seedlings are alike. The [tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md?want=wildlife) sorts them for wildlife by zone, size and sun. Our [native shrubs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/shrubs/index.html.md) include wild ninebark, wild hydrangea, sweet pepperbush and black chokeberry.

## Common questions

### Are nativars as good as native plants for wildlife?

Some are: in trials, nativars bred only to be compact or to resist disease made no difference to wildlife. Those bred for red or purple leaves, doubled or sterile flowers, or a new flower color give less.

### Are cultivars of native plants good for pollinators?

Many are, when the flowers stay single, fertile and in the wild color. Sterile mopheads give bees little: 'Annabelle' wild hydrangea drew a third as many bumble bees as the wild form.

### What does straight species mean?

It means the plant as it grows wild, not a named selection copied from one plant. Grown from seed, each straight-species seedling differs a little from the next.

### How do I know if a plant is a nativar?

Read the tag: a nativar carries a cultivar name in quotation marks after the botanical name, such as 'Annabelle'. A tag with only the genus and species names a straight species.

## Sources

- [Do Cultivars of Native Plants Support Insect Herbivores?](https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH03957-18): Baisden, Tallamy, Narango and Boyle, University of Delaware, HortTechnology 28 (2018): six bred traits of native woody plant cultivars tested against their wild types in a common garden over two years, with feeding tests of newly hatched bagworms; leaves changed to red, blue or purple deterring insect feeding in all three experiments, variegation preferred in one, no consistent pattern for the other traits, and the quotation.
- [Comparing Insect Pollinator Visitation for Six Native Shrub Species and Their Cultivars](https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI14375-19): Ricker, Lubell and Brand, HortScience 54 (2019): 'Annabelle' wild hydrangea with more than 50 percent fewer fertile florets and a third of the wild form's bumble bee visitors, 'Monlo' ninebark, sold as Diabolo, drawing more hover flies to flowers set against its reddish purple leaves, compact sweet pepperbush and chokeberry cultivars against the species, and pink-flowered 'Pink Beauty' cinquefoil drawing fewer bumble bees and leafcutter bees.
- [Hydrangea arborescens](https://mtcubacenter.org/trials/wild-hydrangea-for-the-mid-atlantic-region/hydrangea-arborescens/): Mt. Cuba Center, Trial Garden, with the trial's page Wild Hydrangea for the Mid-Atlantic Region, 2017 to 2021, and its page on 'Annabelle': lacecap heads of hundreds of fertile flowers against mopheads of sterile flowers with few fertile ones, the pollinator visits studied, the quotation, and 'Annabelle' as the mophead that set the standard.
- [Native, or Not So Much?](https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2016/JuneJuly/Gardening/Cultivars): National Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife magazine (Janet Marinelli, 2016): nativars found in the wild or bred, doubled coneflowers whose cone became a pink pompom, pollen and nectar hard to reach in double flowers, sterile blooms with no seed for goldfinches, anthocyanins in purple leaves, compact and disease-resistant nativars making no difference to wildlife in the Delaware work, the American elm and Dutch elm disease, and cloned nativars carrying less genetic diversity than seed-grown species.
- [Cultivars of Native Plants](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/cultivars-native-plants): University of Maryland Extension: natives planted for pollen, nectar and host plant tissue, and wild swamp rose mallow turned red by pollen from cultivars planted in a nearby subdivision.
- [Picking Plants for Pollinators: The Cultivar Conundrum](https://xerces.org/blog/cultivar-conundrum): Xerces Society (Justin Wheeler, 2017): the ninebark leaf beetle avoiding the leaves of 'Monlo' and taking those of the wild type and 'Dart's Gold', double blooms that bar pollinators from pollen and nectar, recolored flowers less attractive, and a larger flower or shorter habit possibly fine.
- [Straight Species vs. Cultivars: A Quick Plant Guide](https://content.gardenforwildlife.com/learn/straight-species-vs-cultivars-a-quick-plant-guide): Garden for Wildlife, National Wildlife Federation (Trisha Singh, 2025): a straight species as the plant in its natural form, and a cultivar's name in quotation marks on its plant tag after the botanical name.

## Related

- Next step: [Open the tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md?want=wildlife)
- [Native trees for insects: the beetles, wasps, cicadas and fireflies that everything else eats](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-insects/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for birds: caterpillars, fruit, mast, nests and winter cover, month by month](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-birds/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-butterflies-and-moths/index.html.md)
- [Will it come true from seed? Store-bought nuts, grafted fruit, cultivars, and the seedlings they make](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/will-it-come-true-from-seed/index.html.md)