A very simple difference you can see if you turn the leaves around. Undulata is shiny and Fortunei is dull.

isnt leaf size significantly different.. the fort., being much larger .... over the years .???

are you speculating as to the future?? ... or trying to ID what you have???

a pic would really help

ken

Fortunei Albomarginata looks like F. Aureomarginata, except that its margins are white instead of yellow. They both have thicker leaves with a darker, smoother green center. The mound habit reminds me of Francee.

Undulata Albomarginata leaves are thinner and end up with a rippled margin. The mound is much looser than those of Fortunei; I think of it as looking messier. This one is much more common, multiplies fast, and what most people have when they find it in their yard.

According to Hosta Library:
Quote:

'Fortunei Albomarginata' was a name given to several different and possibly unrelated plants through the early years of Hosta expansion. Eventually one single cultivar was singled out and officially registered as 'Fortunei Albomarginata'. This plant is not associated with the 'Antioch' types, or with 'Hyacinthina'. Other possible relationships are not yet determined. This is the same plant as 'Silver Crown' and 'Fortunei Obscura Albomarginata'.

But what happened to other clones from this group? How do they differ? They did not ' disappear' just because one of them was given a name, or did they?

Yeah fortunei is a larger hosta with larger leaves, has dull leaf backs, and slightly glaucous color... its white edges also emerge a "gold". It also has a slightly upright growth habit with leaf tips having the falls effect at times..Leaves have decent substance..

Undulata is a medium hosta with medium/small leaves, shiny leaf backs and slightly shiny color... its leaves emerge with a white edge and a slight twist. Undulata or undulated... refers to the individual leaf form looking kindly stepped on... not really piecrusted or wavy... just not smooth.. You will also see more of the marginal undulations in Undulata have a gray color. Plant form is a flat to the ground mound.. leaf substance is one of the worst...

If fortunei, it will look good all season if given the proper care..
If undulata... sometimes regardless of how you treat it... the edges will burn and look ratty...

Also with undulata... the white will often become a misty green color...
Maybe I'm wrong on this next point... No offense intended Paul...But I don't like Pauls picture of Fortunei. It looks like Francee... its margin is thin and uniform. All my fortunei have much wider margins which vary in size and are extremely undulated, sometimes streaking, sometimes up to 2 inches wide on some leaves while only 1/4 inch on others.
This maybe to do with the hosta library info that wieslaw provided....

John

Thanks for this thread. I have both, and can now call them by name rather than 'the old one', 'the white edged one' etc. Now I should start working on the 'plain green one'.
Jan

Here's Undulata Albormarginata. Like John said, medium sized hosta with medium sized leaves:

Fortunei Albormarginata, also known as Silver Crown. Has much larger leaves than Undulata Albormarginata.

Francee (white borders)

Yes, now I know for sure the hosta that was at my DH's house all over the place, for 40 years, was Undulata Albomarginata. I wasn't really sure until now.

Thanks, Gesila. It's nice to have all the "usual suspects" in the same room for a lineup. I'm thinking this thread is a great source of FAQ-able answers. Who is doing Just The FAQs these days?

Very nice thread!

nice pics Gesila

And just when I thought I had it figured out! I have about 20 of what I call Undulata Albomarginata. Some look a little different than others i.e., narrower margins and larger mounds but all show some degree of undulation and all the leaf backs look dull or shiny depending on perspective. Until I get definitive proof otherwise I'll continue to call them undo albos. Anyone have a photo of each albo side by side?

why not post pix of yours fool??? ... lol .. reminds me of fred sanford ...

paul posted side by sides... 3 years ago ... up in the post

ken

Or Mr. T, Ken...

Well, any day I can get ken the village curmudgeon to snarl is a good day.

Take another look at paul's side by side and compare it gesila's above Fortunei Albomarginata and tell me again those two hostas are the same. They are not!

No need for me to add photos when you can't resolve an easy one.

They are the same. Paul's showing the two plants as they are. So is Gesila. The difference is the amount of sun. Gesila's f. albomarginata is in more son, so it looks raggedy. The one Paul is showing is in more shade and perhaps a little earlier in the season. Gesila's is just more faded and has a few slug holes.

bk

Clear as mud! All the information here and I'm still not sure what I have

So show it to us. It's very simple, really. If you had them side by side, you'd see the difference immediately. Undulata has a thin leaf. It's also more strap shaped (long and not very wide). The leaves are really thin (they tend to droop, especially when it gets hot. (slugs love them)

Fortunei has a heart shaped leaf and is thicker. (heart shaped, meaning wider and round at the top of the leaf, narrowing to a point (they are held more upright)..

bk

"The difference is the amount of sun."

BS. The difference is width of the white margins. Paul's Fortunei and gesila's Francee are near identical. Take another look at gesila's 2nd photo labeled undo albo - I assume all 4 hostas in that photo are undo albos, as labeled. Now take a look at gesila's 3rd photo of a Fortunei leaf - not heart shaped and near identical to his 2nd photo of undo albo.

And if size matters take another look at Paul's undo albo leaf size - those are quite large. I have figured mine out - I have 20 undo albos with varying leaf size and varying white margin widths. Much like undo univittata's I assume the variations of margins can be large based not only on age and maturity but lineage as well. Undo's have been around for a hundred years??? Hostas genes are unstable?

Make life easy on yourself, frankenstein. You have undo albos (very very common, very traditional, and very old - box stores are still selling them!) unless you have something distinctly different. Francee is distinctly different. And Paul's top right photo of Fortunei is distinctly different from his undo albo. I have neither a Francee nor a Paul's photoed Fortunei and thus no mud.

P.S. Paul's photos are from the Hosta Library are they not?

I was going to join the convo with my guesses, but I think I will pass. I see how you can debate heart shape vs ovate. As I have seen some of both within the same yougin plants and especially in the fortunei. However... Dull and shiny are not open to perspective, seeings they are opposites. They are or arent, is or ain't.

The original question was: "what are the key differences" between UA and FA...

The easiest to remember, without delving into variables such as leaf shape, colour, width of margin, mound appearance, (which was effectively covered above) etc. is this:

1. undulata albomarginata leaves have shiny undersides
2. fortunei albomarginata leaves have glaucous undersides

The very first response to this thread by Bennie is very definitive. If still in doubt, check the leaf undersides. Smorz clearly reiterated. If nothing else, the back of the leaf makes it clear whether it's an undulata or fortunei.

I have taken it all in and checked all of my plants. I have u albos, f albos, and a couple Francees. That leaves me with a couple that just don't quite seem like any of them. Let's throw Antioch into the mix. What are its differences?

New to all this. Here’s the hosta at my house. Not sure which, even with these great descriptions.

Pretty sure that's a fortunei in your pic, dtrotto.

I agree with Don.

To don and beverly: why not Francee?

I guess I would have to see a side view. Francee is more mounding and has better substance. It could be Francee. Francee is a fortunei sport so there is very little difference visually in a picture. If it makes it through the summer unscathed, in perfect form then its Francee. My Francee is nearly 5 feet across.

dtrotto.. welcome to the forums ...it would have been best.. if you had started a new post.. for a new ID ...

part of the problem is .... all the pix lack a scale ...and colors are variable in pix.. depending on contrast and color ... time of day the3 pic was taken ...

ken

drotto, ignore ken - the village curmudgeon. No matter how well a thread addresses a concern, posting in an old thread always upsets Ken.

This IS the perfect thread to address your issue for it demonstrates perfectly the difficulty in identifying common hostas.

Maybe ken is clueless as to how you came to this thread. My bet is via google, as I've done the same thing - googling a named hosta and having an old thread pop-up. I am impressed - your first post and you already irritated the village curmudgeon.

Why would this discussion be better if we started over from scratch!!!

Some of us weren't around here 3 years ago.

Adding to the answers to the OP's question: look at the blooms. Undulata forms, whether white-centered, white-edged, or all-green (Erromena) will all have the same wimpy blooms on thin scapes (stalks) and NEVER set seed (unless you sacrifice a virgin to the nearest volcano, at least). Fortunei forms, including Hyacinthina and, by extension, the entire Gold Standard family of sports, will have very similar blooms: heavier flowers on thicker scapes, and will on occasion set seed. (compare to Sieboldiana types which generally set lots of seed)

Use this site (on a computer browser) to easily compare pictures of leaves and blooms: http://www.pwk.resteddoginn.ca/compare_hl.php

No blooms on Fortunie Albomarginata in your link. So much for that comparison!

And for real confusion try a side by side between Francee and Fortunie Albomarginata.