The commercial form of Iris danforiae is a good example, it is sterile because it is triploid. This results in bigger flowers for garden use, but also makes it sterile. If it were in the wild it would die out unless it could reproduce vegetatively. In that case there could be a significant sterile wild population of the species. (In my opinion not likely to happen in this case). If the sterile triploid were to be stronger and compete with the diploid material, then one day there might be only a sterile triploid form of the species in existance. On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 5:29 AM, The Silent Seed <santoury@aol.com> wrote: > > This is the first time I've ever heard of an actual species (of anything) > being sterile beyond artificial damage, such as neutering,.... >