The reality is that the word "heirloom," as it applies to plants, became a marketing term many, many years ago.
The posts of folks in this thread highlight some new, even bolder, glaring examples of how far some companies are willing to go for a buck. It is kind of like companies slapping the word "natural" on processed, packaged "food." It is meaningless and put there to make busy people feel good about their purchase. (Or trick them)
Personally, I remain a purest. To me, the definition of an heirloom is found in the dictionary. That is, it is simply a valuable object (it could be a vase, a pocket watch or a seed variety) that has been owned by a family, and passed from one generation to another. Simple as that. The only conditions I would add is that an heirloom plant must be open-pollinated and not genetically engineered.
Some people like to assign some arbitrary age to their definition, i.e. 50 years or 100 years, but this is inherently flawed as well. For example, the technology of genetic engineering was discovered in 1973. Plants started to be engineered about 10 years later. You see where I am going with this.
Basically, in our complex, consumerist world, we can't trust labeling. We must research who we are dealing with, what their ulterior motives are, and ask questions.
Thank you
@Joannabanana for your post . . . I had not seen all those "heirlooms." What a mess!
~Mike
