I noticed my McColley's Finale was changed to Philodendron Prismacolor™ Fall Leaves, also my Black Cardinal was changed to Blushing Philodendron Philodendron Prismacolor™ Pop Art. Looks to me like those are plants from Proven Winners, which neither of mine are, they are from local growers. I'm confused, why this name change, I've never even heard of Prismacolor.

Can someone explain this change

I remembered there was a thread on this subject....

The thread "Should these database entries be combined?" in Plant Database forum
thus the changes and merge of database entries at Feb 23, 2024
https://garden.org/plants/stat...
https://garden.org/plants/stat...

All I can think of is, the patents for Finale and Cardinal have probably expired. I don't know enough about legalities to know why Proven Winners can trademark like that. Unless they are tissue culturing the plant and it's got some differences?

I did find this https://www.provenwinners.com/...
The PDF list of plants #4, is quite extensive dated 2023/24, which would mean merging an awful lot of plants on the database. Ex: Monstera Thai Constellation is now Mysteria™ Spotsylvania. I don't know a lot about the legalities but if the plant is just trademarked, and not patented then why merge with the original cultivar, shouldn't both remain on the database? Most on the list don't have patents...I don't know

Yes its my opinion that they should remain separate. My Black Cardinal, Prince of Orange, and McColley's finale are all years and years old before all this nonsense started. They are still the original hybrids, just with some added new name to try and sell more plants. My Thai Constellation was from a local grower in like 2005, my Albo Monstera, same.
It MAY be the same thing that happened with Alocasia reginula, Anthurium luxurians and Alocasia Amazonica way back in the wayback. They went into tissue culture, and Agristarts selected out one 'special' cultivar to prop and move forward with. A. reginuma became Alocaisa 'Black Velvet', A. lux became A. lux 'Quilted Heart', and A. Amazonia became Poly. They were able to TM those, but because these plants were all originally species (or in the case of Amazonia a natural hybrid) they couldn't;t patent them. But they were able to attach a new name for market.
They do the same with cannas....Tropicanna is the TM name, and the other names of the various ones are the cultivar names.
I think they do this because they think that there are a lot of 'new' houseplant people emerging every day who have no idea of the history of these hybrids. SO they think they are getting 'something new'.

This is one of the best websites for to research plants, and as a plant collector/enthusiast/horder LOL, I find the history of my plants quite interesting.

If you do a data search on here for say, Philodendron Squamiferum, three plants come up, to aide those researching the plant they are interested in, one being PW plant and one the original cultivar. However If you do a data search Philodendron 'McColley's Finale', only Philodendron Prismacolor™ Fall Leaves comes up, stating it is the cultivar 'Fall Leaves', and can go by the name of McColley's Finale. To me that can be very confusing to a new plant owner, since there was an original patent on McColley's Final, and it has a great history, and I for one have the original plant in my garden.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that some of these plants are now available to people at much more affordable prices, and PW has some I am even interested in. I just think it can be confusing eliminating the original cultivar.

I don't think eliminating the original should be allowed. The process of hybridizing and bringing the original plants to market was long, arduous, and expensive for people like McColley and Miller. To have a modern company come along after they are dead and their patent has expired and renaming their plants is, to my, just wrong.

I just looked at their site. I find it ludicrous. The plant they have as Philodendron rugosum aberrant looks nothing like it. This it the real one. This form always has the weird 'notch's one side, theirs completely lacks that. Its being investigated right now whether rugosum aberrant form is actually a rugosum variant at all....the blooms between it and true rugosum and completely different, and the growth habit is also not the same.

Their separate listing for Tigertooth, Golden Girl, Double Edge Sword and Zig Zag are all the same plant...they are all the original Henderson's Pride that originated in Oz. Other names for this are Crocodile, Sawtooth, Pluto (a bronze form) and Ring of Fire (a variegated form). All the same plant.

I agree totally Gina!
Maybe plant admin can chime in on this one, sent them a copy of the thread.

I polled the Philo heads on FB. They think its just a marketing ploy to sell more plants.

Trademarking is different from patenting. Trademarking is the use of THAT particular name (think Kleenex) and patenting is THAT particular hybrid/cultivar. It is a money thing.

Gina1960 said: I polled the Philo heads on FB. They think its just a marketing ploy to sell more plants.

I agree that it's a marketing ploy. This is the reason that we merge the entries in our database and list all of the names in one entry. Having one entry per plant guards against the effort to sell a "new" plant to someone who already has the plant under a different name.

zuzu said: I agree that it's a marketing ploy. This is the reason that we merge the entries in our database and list all of the names in one entry. Having one entry per plant guards against the effort to sell a "new" plant to someone who already has the plant under a different name.

I understand what you're saying.
What I am not understanding is why the original data on NGA's Philodendron 'McColley's Finale' was changed to Prismacolor ™ 'Fall colors"? I haven't seen the actual tag on this plant, the website description doesn't even mention P. 'McColley's Finale', it does state it is a "New" blushing Philodendron/hybrid .
https://www.provenwinners.com/...

Here's the Proven Winners page showing the former name, Sherri.

https://provenwinnersdirect.co...

Except the plant is NOT 'formerly McColley's Finale'. McColley's Finale is STILL McColley's Finale. There are many other sources for Philodendrons besides Proven Winners. They can't just negate that actual McColley's Finale exists, because they want to give it a new marketing name

That's just a matter of semantics. They've said "formerly McColley's Finale" instead of "formerly called McColley's Finale" or "formerly sold as McColley's Finale." They aren't implying that the plant no longer exists.

Ok then, looks like it is formally McColley's Finale on this website also, even the photos have been changed to the new name. I'm still confused on how the cultivar name is 'Fall Leaves', I didn't think you could trademark a Cultivar name? Thanks Zuzu for the clarification of the name change.

Surprise! You can trademark anything. Except "You're fired!"

I see that Robert H. McColley's patent for Philodendron 'McColley's Finale' was granted in 2001 and expired in 2019 and now Proven Winners has the plant with their trademark/brand name in their Prismacolor Series with the cultivar name 'Fall Leaves'. So, does that mean when a patent expires someone else can produce that plant and put their Trademark on it, as Proven Winners has done? It appears that a lot of Philodendrons have now been trademarked with the Proven Winners brand and the original cultivar name has changed. This is a list of Philo's in their Prismacolor Series. https://www.provenwinners.com/...

Also, does that mean other companies can also propagate the same plant and put their TM name on it, with an even a different cultivar name? If so, boy is that going to cause a lot more confusion!!

Yes, confusion reigns, and it also dupes new growers who have no idea about the old McColley hybrids into maybe buying more than one plant because it has a different name.
That is why I don't think they should be merged in the data base. Prismacolor should be a separate listing.

I'm not sure when Cora McColley, who held the last parents on the original plants that her husband and Howard Miller made, died. I think she would have extended the patents if she was still alive.

I also don't think, by looking at the photos, that some of these PW plants even really LOOK like the old cultivars.

McColley and Miller hybridized a couple thousand or more plants during their work together at Gainesville and Apopka. Many of those hybrids were never carried forward through official registration process, much less patented.

Currently, to be a 'true' recognized name, either the species (in the case of a newly described-to- science plant) or the hybrid name must be registered through the International Aroid Society, which is the record holder for all that sort of stuff.