Tricolor, True Tricolor, “Pseudo-Tricolor” — What Exactly Are We Saying?
A Teaching Scroll
Green. Cream. Pink.
Three colours.
Tricolor. Case closed?
Well... botany has entered the chat.
Plant people love names. We need them. But sometimes a word becomes so familiar that we stop asking what we're actually claiming when we use it.
Tricolor is one of those words.
Then somebody adds another:
True Tricolor.
Now things sound considerably more official.
And somewhere along the way, another term entered the conversation:
“Pseudo-Tricolor.”
We use that last one ourselves, so before examining anybody else's label, perhaps we should put our own terminology on the examination table too. Fair is fair.
What does tricolor actually mean?
At its simplest, tricolor means three-coloured.
In horticulture, ‘Tricolor’ can also be an established cultivar epithet. So there is nothing inherently suspicious about the name.
But that does not mean every plant showing three colours belongs to some universal botanical category called Tricolor. Nor does every plant sold with the word Tricolor necessarily carry a formally established cultivar name.
That is where things get tangled.
Plant names travel through nurseries, collectors, wholesalers, tissue-culture lists, social media and eventually plant labels. A descriptive word can become attached to a plant so consistently that familiarity begins to feel like documentation.
Sometimes it is documentation.
Sometimes it isn't.
So when we see Tricolor, the useful question is not simply “Can I count three colours?” It is:
What kind of name are we looking at?
A documented cultivar epithet? A horticultural descriptor? A trade designation? A collector name? Or a name whose provenance simply did not travel with the plant?
We don't think every plant label needs to arrive with a filing cabinet. But those distinctions matter when we're trying to understand what a name actually establishes.
Then someone added “True”
Ah yes. True Tricolor.
Not just Tricolor. TRUE Tricolor.
Apparently the other tricolors are now required to present identification.
We found True Tricolor circulating in collector and commercial language. What we have not found is evidence establishing it as a universal botanical classification for variegated Alocasia with one scientifically defined set of requirements.
That does not mean the phrase is wrong.
It means we need to ask:
True in what sense?
Does “true” identify a documented cultivar? An original clone? A particular horticultural selection? A trade designation? A collector distinction? A particular visible expression?
Those are different claims.
And “true” itself is not the problem. In horticulture, the word can be useful when historical context explains what it distinguishes.
So we're not asking “Is True Tricolor wrong?”
We're asking “What does true establish here?”
If provenance answers that question, wonderful. If it doesn't, we don't think we should fill in the blank ourselves.
But I can see three colours!
Absolutely.
The eye may very reasonably see green, cream and pink.
The biology underneath that observation is another question.
Leaves don't contain little paint cartridges labelled GREEN, CREAM, PINK — although that would make this Scroll considerably shorter.
Leaf colour can involve chlorophyll, carotenoids, anthocyanins, chloroplast development, tissue structure, developmental stage and environmental influences. Those systems can interact.
So three visible colours do not, by appearance alone, tell us exactly which biological mechanisms produced them.
The eye can say:
“I see three colours.”
Science asks:
“What produced them?”
Those aren't competing observations. They're different levels of explanation.
And colour does not always sit still. Young foliage can emerge one colour and mature into another. Pigment levels can change. Chlorophyll can develop. Some environmental conditions can influence colour expression.
So here's an awkward little question:
If a plant shows three colours today and two six months from now, when exactly did it stop being tricolour?
If ‘Tricolor’ is its established cultivar name, it didn't. A cultivar name is not a daily colour census.
Now we need to interrogate ourselves
Which brings us to “Pseudo-Tricolor.”
And yes, those double quotation marks are intentional.
Under cultivated-plant naming conventions, an established cultivar epithet is normally written inside single quotation marks — for example, Genus ‘Cultivar Name’.
Our double quotation marks around “Pseudo-Tricolor” are simply an editorial signal. They do not carry special botanical meaning.
They tell the reader:
This is wording we are using descriptively. We are not presenting “Pseudo-Tricolor” as a formally established botanical classification or as a documented cultivar epithet.
So why do we use it?
Because we encountered plants with a tricolour-like expression but could not establish enough documentation to feel comfortable presenting True Tricolor as their established identity.
Faced with that uncertainty, we chose “Pseudo-Tricolor” for our own listings.
Not because we believe we've solved the identity.
Precisely because we haven't.
We are not proposing “Pseudo-Tricolor” as a new botanical category. We're not founding a new branch of botany before lunch.
It is simply cautious observational language we use for our own plants when we want to acknowledge what we see without making a stronger claim than the evidence, as we understand it, allows.
If better provenance appears later, excellent.
We change the label with the evidence.
Absence of paperwork isn't proof of absence
The International Aroid Society serves as the International Cultivar Registration Authority for the Araceae family, except Calla and Zantedeschia, and maintains the Aroid Cultivar Registry. Resources like that are extremely useful.
But failing to find a name in a registry does not automatically prove that no cultivar exists, that the name is invalid, or that someone using it is wrong.
Records can be incomplete. Plants can circulate before documentation catches up. Historical provenance can disappear.
So we prefer:
“We have not found documentation establishing...”
rather than:
“There is no such plant.”
The first describes the limits of our search.
The second claims knowledge we may not possess.
So which one is correct?
The mildly irritating answer is: it depends what you're trying to say.
If ‘Tricolor’ is an established cultivar epithet, use the cultivar name.
If you're simply describing foliage with three visible colours, three-coloured or tricolour foliage may be enough.
If True Tricolor is being used as a horticultural, commercial or collector distinction, that usage can be acknowledged — while still asking what “true” is intended to establish.
And when we use “Pseudo-Tricolor,” we're describing cautiously.
We're not diagnosing.
The label and the leaf are not the same thing
Plant names can tell us many things. Some reflect taxonomy. Some identify cultivars. Some preserve horticultural history. Some come from nurseries or collector communities. Some begin as useful descriptions and get repeated until nobody remembers where they started.
None of that automatically makes a name useless.
A beautiful plant doesn't become less beautiful because its naming history is incomplete.
But there is a difference between what a plant is called and what the available evidence allows us to say about that name.
And perhaps this best explains why we went looking:
We aren't trying to decide what everyone else should call their plants. We're trying to understand what we can responsibly call ours.
That's it.
We're growers asking questions — not nomenclature police.
If someone has provenance or documentation we haven't found, we'd much rather see it and learn from it than defend an old label simply because we've already used it.
So yes: green, cream and pink can absolutely be three beautiful colours on one leaf.
We can admire them, photograph them, describe them — and still ask:
What exactly are we claiming when we give that expression a name?
Sometimes the answer will be clear. Sometimes history will provide the paperwork. Sometimes horticultural usage will provide context but not certainty.
And sometimes we'll have to say:
“We don't know yet.”
Around here, those aren't embarrassing words. They're often where the next question begins.
The eye counts colours. Evidence tells us how far the name can go.
A note on our role
We are not botanists or nomenclatural experts, and this Teaching Scroll is not presented as a formal taxonomic or cultivar-registration opinion. We are growers following the best evidence and documentation we can find at the time, separating what we can verify from what remains uncertain, and staying willing to revise our understanding when better information appears.
If we have missed a primary source, registration, breeder record or historical document relevant to these names, we welcome the correction. The goal is not to be right forever. The goal is to keep getting closer to what the evidence supports.
— Mandy Vasquez
Owner, Variegated Greens
Leaf by Leaf, a Living Mosaic.