The "real' stoloniferous T. clusiana
Nicholas plummer (Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:26:16 PDT)
It's an interesting conundrum, but I'm not sure that ranks such as
subspecies, varietas, and forma are necessarily inappropriate. Asexually
reproducing populations may create problems for the biological species
concept, but that hasn't stopped numerous asexually reproducing organisms
being named at species rank (e.g. a wide variety of parthenogenetic lizard
species). Evolution will invariably throw up edge cases and mismatches
whenever we try to shoehorn natural variation into human-devised
categories.
Clone may well be incorrect, too. Even if all the pentaploid plants
originated in a single mutant seedling, subsequent somatic mutations will
eventually generate multiple populations if the wild plants are reasonably
numerous, and they might be undetectable without DNA analysis.
Nick
Jim McKenney wrote:
Jim Waddick's question about what we should call the old stoloniferous
clone of Tulipa clusiana opens another can of worms. The plant in question
is a clone. Formal botanical nomenclature does not have a rank
corresponding to clone (unless you accept Individuum as a formal
rank). Ranks such as subspecies, varietas, forma are not suitable because
they imply the existence of a sexually reproducing population. No such
thing as Tulipa clusiana var. clusiana or Tulipa clusiana f. clusiana
exists in nature. What exists in nature and cultivation is a single
pentaploid seedling of ancient origin which now forms a multitudinous
clone.
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