American Alumroot

American Alumroot
Heuchera americana

This species, and others in the genus Heuchera, are the basis for the common garden plant, Coral Bells.  There are now so many varieties of Coral Bells that it's hard to pin down the exact species of any variety.

At first, I thought it was a good thing to use cultivars of native plants in a garden, but then I started thinking about local genotypes, etc. and did some studying from Professor Google.  It turns out that there are some downsides to doing this.

Basically, the genetic makeup of a cultivar has been unnaturally modified to create a garden plant.  It is possible for that garden plant to fertilize the native plants via wind or insects, thus creating wild plants that are a combination of the native plant and the cultivar.  These hybrids, or "nativars", often don't have the traits that make it a good inhabitant of the local ecosystem.  Some don't have the vigor of the native plant.  Some have different colored flowers, thus confusing wild pollinators.  The foliage is generally modified, perhaps making it less edible to wild critters.  There is a good explanation of nativars at https://extension.umd.edu/resource/cultivars-native-plants.

There have been various studies done showing that nativars are either good, or bad, but mostly we don't know.

Suggestions for your garden are; use native plants, use non-native, non-invasive plants, use native cultivars that are sterile.

The flowers of the native plant aren't as pretty as the garden cultivars.