Consistently Knowable and Ideally Growable

Referring to both a botanical taxonomic rank and a legal category, the very nature of the term variety itself is contested, ambiguous, and contextually contingent. Varieties became the subject of national concern by the early 1900s, as European states instituted national breeding programs and variety catalogs. Designed to replace more localized and biodiverse forms of crops such as landraces, these “modern” varieties set the standard following the establishment of (trans)national registers and enforcement that maintained varieties as linear, stable, and productive. These standards fail to account for a plant's dynamism, as varieties interbreed, mutate, and adapt. In this way, “varieties” are often at odds with themselves: Their difference is enforced through legal and physical intervention, their uniformity is rarely total, and they are rarely stable when faced with environmental stressors and other factors. This article examines how grassroots organizations contend with these tensions in naming and maintaining varieties. Drawing from work with the London Seed Bank and the Utopian Seed Project, we contend that these practices of negotiating varietal ambiguity challenge the supremacy of commercial varieties. In contemplating, contesting, or even deciding to preserve varietal purity, seed stewards are creating possibilities for other ways of knowing plants.