---
title: "Microgreen Seed Names: Same Crop, Four Names, Two Species"
description: "Seed law requires a packet to state its kind and variety, not its species. One catalog's four kale microgreen listings span two species and $25.73 to $84.25 a pound."
url: "https://microgreensguru.com/blog/crop-names-and-aliases/"
lang: "en"
published: "2026-08-13"
modified: "2026-08-13"
author: "Cal Hewitt"
image: "https://microgreensguru.com/og/blog-crop-names-and-aliases.jpg"
---

# Four Bags Labeled Kale, Two Species and a 227 Percent Price Gap: How Microgreen Seed Actually Gets Named

[Cal Hewitt](https://microgreensguru.com/about/cal-hewitt/)Published August 13, 2026Checked August 13, 2026

- buying
- beginner
- method
- food safety

![Four plain unprinted seed bags standing open in a row on a worn bench, each holding visibly different seed, two shades of small round brassica seed, one noticeably larger and darker and one distinctly reddish, photographed from slightly above in flat daylight](https://microgreensguru.com/images/blog/crop-names-and-aliases.jpg)

**The crop word on the bag is the least precise thing on it, and United States seed law does not require the thing that would fix that.**

**Here is the case that makes it concrete.** On 2026-08-12 one catalog listed four conventional [kale](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/kale/) microgreen seeds at one pound each:

Four listings sold as kale, one catalog, one date

| Listing | Species on the page | Price per pound |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Toscano | *Brassica oleracea* | **$25.73** |
| Bright Green Curly | *Brassica oleracea* | **$32.65** |
| KX-1 | \***Brassica napus**\* | **$74.65** |
| Purple Reign F1 | *Brassica oleracea* | **$84.25** |

**The top listing is 227% above the bottom one, and one of the four is a different species from the other three.** KX-1 is *Brassica napus*, the rapeseed species, not *Brassica oleracea*. **All four are sold as kale**, because "kale" is a crop word rather than a taxonomic one.

**The price spread is not proof the cultivar caused it.** Organic status, inventory, seed treatment and contract supply all move a seed price. **The buyer-relevant fact is simpler: four bags carrying one crop word had different variety labels, different species fields and a threefold price range.**

## What to actually do

- **Buy on kind plus variety, and ask for the species.** The variety is required on the label. The species usually is not, and it is the thing that tells you whether two bags are the same plant.
- **Treat a crop word as a category.** "Kale" spanned two species and a threefold price range in one catalog on one day. [Kale microgreen seed](https://microgreensguru.com/go/seed-kale/) is a shelf, not a product.
- **Do not assume two identical cultivar names are identical material.** A 14-entry trial found seed companies' "Lacinato" strains are not all the same.
- **Ask for the lot number on anything over a pound.** It is a required label element at that weight and it is what makes a problem traceable.
- **Know that a brand is allowed, and is required to look like a brand.** If a word on the bag is doing the job of the kind or variety and is not one, that is the thing to question.
- **Check whether your seller prints a binomial at all.** Some do as a matter of course and some never do, and neither is breaking a rule.
- **Remember the interstate limit.** Seed grown, conditioned and traded entirely inside one state is outside the Federal Seed Act, so the label guarantees you are relying on may not apply.
- **Use aliases as search terms, not as identity.** Peppergrass and curly cress will find you the same crop. They will not tell you which strain arrives.

## What the label is legally required to say

**For vegetable seed in United States interstate commerce, the binding claims are kind and variety name.** USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service stated on 2023-03-06 that there is no exception for vegetable seed. **A brand may sit alongside the kind or variety, and it must be clearly identified as a brand** rather than dressed up to look like the kind or variety.

**What is not required is the botanical binomial.** The regulations speak in terms of kind, variety and type. **No provision found requires a Latin name on a domestic vegetable-seed packet at all.**

**What must appear scales with the pack.** A vegetable-seed label of one pound or less meeting the germination standard states kind, variety and the interstate shipper's name and address or AMS code. Below-standard seed adds germination, test date and the words "Below Standard". **Over one pound it also adds germination, test date and lot number.**

**And the Federal Seed Act reaches interstate commerce only.** Seed grown, conditioned and traded wholly within one state sits outside it.

**The enforcement is real where it applies.** AMS calls false varietal labeling a serious violation and publishes settlements that include false kind and variety labeling. There is also an adjudicated wrong-variety case on record. **So, the crop name is enforceable insofar as it is the required kind and must not be false or misleading. It is not a license to swap a required variety for a slogan.**

## Species, cultivar and marketing name are three different things

**Getting these apart is most of the work.**

- **Species** is the scientific binomial placing the plant in a biological species, for example *Brassica oleracea*. It answers what plant this is.
- **Cultivar** is the selected material within that species, differentiated by stated characters and maintained by appropriate propagation, conventionally written in single quotes: *Brassica oleracea* 'Toscano'.
- **Trade designation or marketing name** is a selling device. The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants says explicitly that a trade designation can market a cultivar, Group or grex **in place of or alongside** its accepted name.

**So "microgreen", "dinosaur", "premium" or a brand can be useful search language and establishes neither species nor cultivar.** A translated cultivar epithet used for marketing gets the same treatment: the Code makes it a trade designation, not automatically the accepted name.

**A cultivar name is also not automatically a property right.** The United States has no mandatory variety-registration system. **Once a variety has been traded or sold under a name, that name cannot be changed and cannot be reused for another variety of the same kind.** Separate protection exists through Plant Variety Protection, which USDA says runs **20 years**, or **25 for vines and trees**, plus plant and utility patents. **That protects the variety, not ownership of every ordinary word used as a name.**

## Synonym sets are real, and they are not always one thing

**Toscano kale is also called lacinato, Tuscan and dinosaur kale.** North Carolina Cooperative Extension says so directly, and the catalog's own category says "Lacinato (also known as Toscano or Dinosaur kale)". **That is a genuine synonym set for one seller's named material.**

**Then the complication that matters.** A British Columbia seed trial, run in 2016 and published in 2018, says many seed companies offer heirlooms named "Lacinato" that are **not all the same**, and its 14-entry trial treated their strains as maintained or selected differently.

**So, the synonym set holds within a seller and does not hold across sellers.** Two bags both reading "Lacinato" can be different maintained strains. **Ask for the cultivar designation, the seed-lot record, and whether the seller means an exact maintained cultivar, a type, or a marketing synonym**, before treating two listings as the same thing.

**Cress runs the same way in the other direction.** One seller's listing sells "Curly Cress ([Garden Cress](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/garden-cress/))" and reports regional names including garden pepper cress, pepper grass, pepperwort and poor man's pepper. **That is direct evidence one seller markets those aliases. It is not taxonomic proof**, and a different seller's page identifies cress as *Lepidium sativum*, which is a cross-reference rather than a guarantee that every listing reading "cress" is that species.

## Whether the species appears at all is a seller-by-seller choice

**Practice differs sharply, and this is checkable rather than assumed.**

- The catalog with the four kale listings **prints a Latin Name field** on its product pages.
- A large competitor's [broccoli](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/broccoli/) microgreen seed mix page gives the crop, claims and growth information and **no botanical-name field at all**.
- The cress listing above \*\*does not print *Lepidium sativum*\*\*.

**None of those is a violation**, because no rule found requires a binomial. **What share of United States packets carry one has never been measured**, and settling it would take a regulator's nationwide packet audit.

## Where to find the species name instead

**Every crop entry here carries the botanical name a packet is not required to print, alongside the names that crop is actually sold under.**

Naming data across the 62 crop entries

| Field | Coverage |
| --- | --- |
| Publishes a botanical name | **62 of 62** |
| Publishes a list of names it is sold under | **62 of 62** |
| Total trade names recorded | **234** |
| Distinct trade names | **234**, no name reused across two crops |
| Mean names per crop | **3.8** |
| Most on one crop | **6**, garden cress, including peppergrass and curly cress |
| Botanical families represented | **15**, of which Brassicaceae is 18 crops |

**Two species carry more than one entry**, which is the same-word problem in miniature: *Beta vulgaris* appears as both [beet](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/beet/) and [Bull's Blood beet](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/bulls-blood-beet/), and *Brassica oleracea* var. *capitata* as both [green cabbage](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/green-cabbage/) and [red cabbage](https://microgreensguru.com/microgreen-types/red-cabbage/). They are kept apart rather than merged, because a buyer choosing between them is choosing between different material.

**That 234 names map onto 62 crops with no name reused is a property of a curated list rather than of the market.** The market is ambiguous, so check the binomial instead of the crop word.

**Garden cress carrying six names is the clearest single case**, and it is the same crop that finished last or near last in [two of the three consumer taste panels](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/best-tasting-microgreens/). **A buyer who dislikes it under one name can buy it again under another.**

## What nobody has measured

- **What share of United States seed packets print a botanical name.** This needs a regulator's nationwide packet audit, and until then every statement about it is an impression.
- **How often two bags carrying one cultivar name contain materially different strains.** One trial found it for one kale name.
- **Whether the species field changes what buyers pick.** No study tests it.
- **How much of a same-crop price spread is cultivar** rather than organic status, inventory, treatment or contract supply. The four listings above cannot separate them.
- **How often microgreen buyers receive a different variety than ordered.** There is an adjudicated case and no rate.

### Terms on this page

**Kind.** The crop-level name required on a vegetable seed label in interstate commerce, for example kale. It is enforceable and it is not a species.

**Variety.** The named selection required alongside kind on the label. Often overlaps ordinary use of cultivar.

**Cultivar.** A selected assemblage within a species, differentiated by stated characters and maintained by propagation. Conventionally written in single quotes.

**Species.** The scientific binomial, for example *Brassica oleracea*. Not required on a domestic vegetable-seed packet.

**Trade designation.** A marketing name. The nomenclature code allows it to market a cultivar in place of or alongside the accepted name, which is why it proves nothing about identity.

**Seed lot.** An identifiable quantity of seed handled as one traceable unit. A required label element above one pound, and the thing a recall or complaint attaches to.

**Below Standard.** The label wording required when seed does not meet the germination standard, alongside germination and test date.

**Plant Variety Protection.** United States protection for a qualifying new variety, 20 years or 25 for vines and trees. It protects the variety, not a word.

## Sources

Opened 2026-08-12. The naming counts across all 62 variety entries are this site's own, read from the `botanical`, `botanicalFamily` and `soldAs` fields. Prices are a single-date snapshot from one catalog and are not a price history; the 227% figure is computed from the two displayed per-pound prices on that date.

- [USDA AMS, varietal labeling requirements under the Federal Seed Act](https://www.ams.usda.gov/content/usda-ams-clarifies-varietal-labeling-requirements-federal-seed-act-enhance-transparency) - the 2023-03-06 statement that kind and variety name are required with no exception for vegetable seed, that a brand may accompany them but must be clearly identified as a brand, and that false varietal labeling is a serious violation.
- [7 CFR Part 201, current](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/subchapter-K/part-201) - the Federal Seed Act regulations, framed in terms of kind, variety and type rather than a mandatory botanical binomial, and reaching interstate commerce rather than seed grown, conditioned and traded wholly within one state.
- [USDA AMS, seed company records and the Federal Seed Act (PDF)](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/SeedCompanyRecordsandtheFederalSeedAct.pdf) - the September 2017 guide setting out what a label must carry at one pound or less against over one pound, including germination, test date, lot number and the "Below Standard" wording.
- [USDA AMS, Federal Seed Act settlements (PDF)](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/FSASettlements.pdf) - published settlement examples including false kind and variety labeling.
- [*Agricultural Services Association v. Ferry-Morse*](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/551/1057/44098/) - an adjudicated wrong-variety case.
- [USDA AMS, variety name clearance](https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/seed-testing/applying-for-variety) and [AMS variety naming guidelines](https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/fsa/variety-naming) - no mandatory United States variety-registration system, and the rule that once a variety has been traded or sold under a name that name cannot be changed or reused for another variety of the same kind.
- [USDA Plant Variety Protection Office](https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/plant-variety-protection) - certificates protecting qualifying new varieties for 20 years, or 25 for vines and trees, with rights to exclude marketing and sale and to manage certain breeding uses.
- [International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, ninth edition (PDF)](https://www.publicgardens.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/scriptahorticulturae18.pdf) - the cultivar definition, the convention of single quotation marks, and the explicit statement that a trade designation can market a cultivar, Group or grex in place of or alongside its accepted name, including a translated epithet used for marketing.
- [NC State Extension, the nomenclature of horticultural plants](https://extensiongardener.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-plant-toolbox/the-nomenclature-of-horticultural-plants-an-explanation/) - the species, cultivar and trade-designation hierarchy in plain terms.
- [North Carolina Cooperative Extension, growing kale from seed](https://pender.ces.ncsu.edu/news/growing-kale-from-seed/) - 'Toscano' kale also called lacinato, Tuscan and dinosaur kale, and described as coming from Italy.
- [BC Seed Trials, Lacinato kale variety trial 2016 brief](https://bcfoodweb.ca/briefs/bc-seed-trials-lacinato-kale-variety-trial-2016-brief) - the statement that many seed companies offer heirlooms named Lacinato that are not all the same, across a 14-entry trial treating their strains as maintained or selected differently.
- [NRCS seed tag guide (PDF)](https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/plantmaterials/mtpmctn13828.pdf) - what a seed label and lot record actually contain.
- Practice, one catalog's listings snapshotted 2026-08-12 and used only as dated observations of what was offered: [Toscano](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/microgreens/microgreen-vegetables/kale-toscano-microgreen-seed-2123M.html) at $25.73, [Bright Green Curly](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/microgreens/microgreen-vegetables/kale-bright-green-curly-microgreen-seed-4085M.html) at $32.65, [KX-1](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/microgreens/microgreen-vegetables/kale-kx-1-microgreen-seed-4112M.html) at $74.65 and carrying *B. napus* rather than *B. oleracea*, and [Purple Reign F1](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/microgreens/microgreen-vegetables/kale-purple-reign-f1-microgreen-seed-4610M.html) at $84.25, plus its [Lacinato category page](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/kale/lacinato-kale/) giving the synonym set and its [microgreen vegetable catalog](https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/microgreens/microgreen-vegetables/?srule=product-name-ascending&sz=64) as the naming universe audited.
- Practice, other sellers opened 2026-08-12 as records of what is printed: [Mumm's Curly Cress and Garden Cress](https://sprouting.com/products/curly-cress-garden-cress), listing garden pepper cress, pepper grass, pepperwort and poor man's pepper as regional names and not printing *Lepidium sativum*; [True Leaf Market's broccoli microgreens seed mix](https://trueleafmarket.com/products/broccoli-microgreens-seed-mix?variant=31772083126387), which gives crop, claims and growth information and no botanical-name field; and [West Coast Seeds](https://www.westcoastseeds.com/blogs/our-community/keeping-the-colours-of-summer-alive-in-the-dead-of-winter), which identifies cress as *Lepidium sativum* as a cross-reference.

## Keep reading

- Growing guides

    ### Growing microgreens in a small space: what fits, and what a jar actually gives you

    A windowsill and a shallow tray will grow microgreens; a rinsed jar grows something else. Jars produce sprouts, eaten whole, which FDA treats as a distinct risk category, so the method decides what you end up with.

    [Read Growing microgreens in a small space: what fits, and what a jar actually gives you](https://microgreensguru.com/grow-microgreens/small-spaces-and-jars/)
- Growing guides

    ### Microgreens with kids: the crops that finish inside a two-week unit, and covering the weekend

    Pick from the 5 crops that reliably finish inside a two-week unit, and plan for the weekend, because every published protocol assumes daily care and a school week is five days in seven.

    [Read Microgreens with kids: the crops that finish inside a two-week unit, and covering the weekend](https://microgreensguru.com/grow-microgreens/with-kids-and-classrooms/)
- The journal

    ### Which Microgreens Should a Beginner Grow? Start With Broccoli, Radish or Mustard

    Nearly every beginner list names radish, pea and sunflower. Pea and sunflower are the only two of that set not rated beginner: both carry high mold risk, both need a soak, and both sow at six times the median seed rate.

    [Read Which Microgreens Should a Beginner Grow? Start With Broccoli, Radish or Mustard](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/beginner-microgreens/)
- The journal

    ### Microgreens vs Sprouts: The Difference Is a Cut, Not a Nutrient, and It Decides Which Federal Rule Applies

    A sprout is eaten whole, a microgreen is cut above its roots, and that cut decides whether FDA's sprout rule applies. The nutrition claim used to rank them was measured on mature vegetables.

    [Read Microgreens vs Sprouts: The Difference Is a Cut, Not a Nutrient, and It Decides Which Federal Rule Applies](https://microgreensguru.com/blog/microgreens-vs-sprouts/)