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  Re: Line breeding vs hybridization
From: "Eduardo Goncalves" edggon at hotmail.com> on 2001.06.25 at 00:35:41(6865)
Dear Jim,

Now you put my brain in complete confusion. We must remember that the
link between cultivated and wild species is too narrow. Should we divide the
species between natural species and artificial species? We have some
borderline cases. Let's talk about Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott. It
was discovered (firstly by Linneus) based on plants cultivated at West
Indies. It probably doesn't occur in the wild, but associated with
"primitive" people. It is clearly (not so clearly) different from the other
species of Xanthosoma, but it probably has its origins associated with
humans. Should we consider it an artificial species, or should we consider
it as a species that evolved in some kind of mutualistic relation with the
human animal? The same with X. riedelianum, X. atrovirens and many other
species. Even Spathiphyllum wallisii is not known in the wild. It was
described based on cultivated specimens, and it was never found again,
except at the closest supermarket. (Ron, correct me if I am wrong) Linnean
binomials are artificial in their origin, and it will remains like this
until we discover something different. A Linnean name only means a peculiar
association of genes, translated to morphology in a non-linear way. We only
avoid using it in cultivated plants ("very artificial species") because it
would turn into a very hard task, naming all those brand new association of
genes. There would be much more noise than information on it!!! Anyway,
Linnaeus never thought in wild populations, because he wasn't aware about
the hell of evolution. He was happy, indeed. All this confusion appeared
when we started to mix up Linnaeus and evolutionary thinking. They are
almost like oil and water.

Good growing anyway (whatever is the name of the thing you grow),

Eduardo.

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