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. > __________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >