Goeppertia burle-marxii 'Ice Blue'

Goeppertia burle-marxii 'Ice Blue' is a cultivar of the accepted species Goeppertia burle-marxii (H.Kenn.) Borchs. & S.Suárez, a member of Marantaceae. Helen Kennedy described the species in 1982 in the Canadian Journal of Botany 60(11): 2365–2370 under the basionym Calathea burle-marxii H.Kenn., recording that the taxon was already present in the horticultural trade at the time of formal description, that it is native to the state of Bahia, Brazil, and that it was named in honour of Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx [1]. Plants of the World Online (POWO), maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, records Goeppertia burle-marxii as the accepted name and lists Calathea burle-marxii H.Kenn. as a synonym; the name Calathea burle-marxii continues to appear in trade contexts but is not accepted under current botanical nomenclature [3].

The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) distinguishes three separate name classes: registered epithet, trade designation, and patent denomination.

Registered epithet. The cultivar epithet is 'Ice Blue', enclosed in single quotation marks as the ICNCP requires. No International Cultivar Registration Authority has been appointed for Marantaceae, so the epithet has not been submitted to or recorded by any appointed authority [4]. The registry holds 'Ice Blue' as nomenclatural evidence only.

Trade designation. No trade designation distinct from the cultivar epithet 'Ice Blue' has been located in any authoritative source. The name 'Blue Ice' circulates in horticultural commerce as an alternative label for the same taxon but has not been established as a formally registered trademark or formally distinguished from the cultivar epithet by any appointed authority.

Patent denomination. No patent number is recorded in the Digital Towns registry for this cultivar, and no plant patent establishing a denomination for 'Ice Blue' was located in any primary record. The registry's patent_number and patent_expires_on fields are both null. No patent protection can be inferred or implied in the absence of a primary record.

The basionym Calathea burle-marxii H.Kenn. was published by Kennedy in 1982 in the Canadian Journal of Botany 60(11): 2365–2370, with the type locality recorded as Bahia, Brazil [1]. The combination Goeppertia burle-marxii (H.Kenn.) Borchs. & S.Suárez was published by Borchsenius, Suárez and Prince in 2012 in Systematic Botany 37(3): 620–635, at page 629, as part of a revision that transferred 246 species from Calathea to Goeppertia after molecular phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that Calathea as previously circumscribed was polyphyletic [2]. POWO records Goeppertia burle-marxii as the accepted name, retrieved 2026-08-12 [3].

No originator is documented — this cultivar predates any registration authority for Marantaceae.

The registry records no originator name, no parentage, no year established, no derivation, and no origin place or date for 'Ice Blue'. No primary record — including any USPTO plant patent, any peer-reviewed publication, or any authoritative register — establishing a breeder or place of first propagation was located during this research pass. The species was described by Kennedy from material already in trade circulation at the time of the 1982 protologue [1], consistent with cultivar names in this genus circulating independently of any formal attribution system.

No International Cultivar Registration Authority has been appointed for Marantaceae. The ISHS Commission for Cultivar Registration, which is responsible for appointing all International Cultivar Registration Authorities, does not list any authority for this family [4]. No formal register of cultivar epithets for Goeppertia therefore exists under the ICNCP framework. Digital Towns maintains this registry as an applicant aggregator; it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operating under any appointment from the ISHS or any ICRA.

Two primary taxonomic sources underpin the species-level identification: Kennedy's 1982 protologue [1] and Borchsenius, Suárez and Prince's 2012 revision [2], with POWO providing the current accepted-name record [3]. These sources establish the accepted name and the synonymy of Calathea burle-marxii but do not describe any named cultivar of the species. No authoritative botanical or patent description of the diagnostic characters of 'Ice Blue' as distinct from the species type was located. The registry's distinguishing_traits field is null and verified_against_primary is false. Limited authoritative sources available; further research needed.