Pure, pure, species
Michael.Chamberland (23274MJC@MSU.EDU)
Sat, 19 Oct 96 20:21 EDT
> From: PeterSmale@aol.com
>
> >Steve writes: You can have the rest as curiosities as far as I am concerned
>
> Basically I'm with you Steve on this. One of the things I worry about is tha
> a lot of people grow plants from seed obtained from mixed collections or
> through clubs seed banks and believe that the offspring are true species whe
> in a lot of cases the flowers have been visited by bees who have been all
> around the greenhouse picking up pollen from every flower that happens to be
> open.
> I would like to see a collection of guaranteed species of Sarracenia backed
> up by DNA checking to be used as both a reference and a source of true
> species for collectors.
Whoa, if that kind of effort is put into guaranteeing species "purity",
can you imagine how much these plants would cost! :-)
I really cannot understand the desire for "pure" or "true" species among
hobby growers. If we are talking about a conservation program, or about
a research project, then this kind of purity is important. But most
hobby growers grow CP because the plants look cool. If it looks cool,
why sweat over whether the plant has some hybrid blood (phloem?) in it
from a few generations back? I worry that this desire for "pure" species
can only be met with absolute confidence by obtaining plants from the
"pure" source, namely from habitat.
Michael Chamberland