Ecotype, what does it mean?

Ecotype is defined as “a subspecies or race that is especially adapted to a particular set of environmental conditions.” Native plants that grow in a particular glade or other habitat and have adapted to that place are considered to be an ecotype. A different individual coneflower transplanted to that glade may not preform as well as the other coneflowers because it is not evolved to that space, it is not the local ecotype.

Reputable native plant nurseries will always sell only local ecotype plants. How a nursery defines local ecotype can vary generally to reflect the distance that customers are spread from the store. If a plant is local ecotype to Cole County Missouri because the nursery is located there and the homeowner picks those plants to grow in a St Louis county garden they may not as well as a plant from a nursery that has plants that are local ecotype of St Louis County. Nurseries that sell at farmers markets across the state will have plants that are also from across the state using a broad definition of local ecotype. The narrower your definition is of ecotype the more truly local your landscape will be. However, most gardeners in St Louis aim for plants that are local ecotype to the bistate area.

"Wild Ones Natural Landscapers advocates the selection of plants and seeds derived, insofar as is possible, from local or regional sources at sites having the same or similar environmental conditions as the site of planting. Such plant materials are often termed the local ecotype."

A homeowner that strives to make their garden as nature friendly as possible tries to mimic the plant community that would be there naturally. Finding local ecotype plants for the garden can be almost impossible, especially if near by wild areas are not available for seed collecting. Sourcing plants for the native garden is an exercise in contacting the local nurseries and figuring out which plants are closest to the local ecotype. Usually choices are limited by what is available and may vary from year to year.

A very difficult landscape project that I worked on recently had requirements that all plants used in the landscape must be local ecotype within 10 miles of the site. Since there were no native plant nurseries within that radius I had to collect seeds at surrounding natural areas and grow them in a greenhouse for the project. This really limited my species options for the garden. The plants available determined how I designed the landscape.

Plants from a local ecotype will preform better. They are adapted to the site through many years of evolution. Flowers of the same species will bloom at slightly different times throughout their range with more southern flowers blooming first. If a flower from the southern range is transplanted to a garden in the north of the range it will bloom too early. A flower that blooms too early may miss blooming in sync with it’s pollinators and therefore can not produce seeds. Plants have many other slight variations throughout their range and moving species around can mess with many different dependencies in a natural balance.