Intermediates between genera

[Gunter]

If someone found a plant, or population of plants, that was intermediate between two other plants. How would they know?

What if you had a hybrid of two types of cacti, that was self fertile and became a stable form and population over time.

Ok, so assuming this, then you come along and take samples of the plants for molecular data, this allows you to look at theoretical degrees of relation according to a bootstrap method employing a linear relationship. However I have already addressed that the relationship in question is non-linear.

So then you have the data, but how would you employ that data to indicate an intergeneric hybrid?

The plant population would not physically resemble either of its parents, moreover the combination could acutally result in a plant that is self fertile, but is not able to be crossed with either of it's parental plants due to some physical or chemical barrier that arises because of the new combination of alleles.

So we have a plant population that is intermediate of two others, but is unique and cannot be bred back to either of parents.

And we have molecular evidence showing degrees of relation of all three plants, the parents and the offspring.

The question is, how would the intermediate be identifiable?

I think it would not show, even with modern methods of analysis.

The genetics of an intermediate might not even indicate relation of an intermediate to one of it's parents.

And then there is the problem that parsimony is a very poor form of evidence.

Can anyone point to a study tracking mutation in microoganisms or viruses, in which parsimony is demonstrated to be accurate?

The last time I went looking I found that when they actually used cladistics programs on virus genetic data, that the results indicated by parsimony were not remotely accurate. In this case the actual changes that occurred over time in the alleles they tracked were far more complex than parsimony. Parsimony is unproven and deeply flawed as a cladistic tool. I've yet to see any evidence in support of its accuracy. I think we only use it because we have few alternatives, but is gives literally improbable results.

So this is my concern, that numerous populations in the cactus family are actually intermediate forms that have become stable over time and given the way we are analyzing the cacti, we are unable to tell. Some of the inconsistencies in the cacti genetics papers of the last decade could be explained as the result of un-detected intermediates in the data pool. Like if you had three Thelocactus species and analyzed them all to generate data, but one of them was intermediate between Thelocactus and another cactus. This would cause no problems when you compared the three species, but when you look at a larger group then you would end up splitting a genus in a linear diagram or getting a paraphyletic clade. Both of these things, paraphyletic clades and split genera occur in the most recent cactus genetic work I have been able to read, which indicates that a reticulated relationship is involved in some of the taxa and this cannot be shown with the approaches that are being used.

What do you think?

am I wrong?

Edited January 24, 2010 by Archaea

[tripsis]

This is an interesting topic. Would an intergeneric hybrid not have gene sequences unique to both its parents and thus be identifiable through that? I'm assuming it would have at least some unique genes, which would confound in linking it to its parents. Even if this was so, surely some genees unique to both genera would be present in the hybrid to indicate its relation to each of it parents?

Then there are morphological characteristics. A hybrid should have at least some morphological characteristics of each parent.

Paraphyletic clades are not uncommon and will probably continue to exist until we find a better way to ranks organisms taxanomically. If reticulated relationships do occur in some taxa, we'll have to rethink our ways of viewing relationships amongst those organisms.

Out of curiosity, which papers have you read on the topic?

[kadakuda]

its a very thought provoking topic, but i would agree with you on we just are not really able to comprehend and realize the true relationships. on stable hybrid populations that cannot breed back to the parents...this seems simple: evolution. by simple species standards, if they cannot breed with each other, they are not the same species. so hybrids that are not sterile that eventually veer away and are incompatible with the parent species, should then be a distinct species.

i find it amazing how many descriptions of so many plants and animals lack *ANY* kind of remarks or apparent thought as to their reproductive relations, especially seen as this is a *key* aspect of being a distinct species.

as far as i can think, if 2 plants/animals that are not sterile cannot [truly] breed with each other, they are of a different species. perhaps this is one of the signs posted at the fork in the road. this does not mean that if we cannot manage to breed them then its a different species. many organisms have very specialized reproductive systems that we are not aware of and are not able to artificially create, so thus we assume they cannot breed when perhaps they actually do naturally.

The question is, how would the intermediate be identifiable?

all that comes to mind with that question, which is one i try to ask myself often as well, is: there will always be doubt. we could use a peyote mother and a pedro father, and if the resulting seeds grew columnar, we could still not be 100% positive, even though everything through our eyes points logically to a hybrid, there is always chance of freak mutations through selfing. as unlikely as it seems, there is always doubt.

even genetic work has its grey areas as you mention. the only sure thing in science, at least biology, is that everything is simply a guess, without exception (in my opinion)

Edited January 24, 2010 by kadakuda

[Gunter]

Would an intergeneric hybrid not have gene sequences unique to both its parents and thus be identifiable through that?

Most genetic work does not extrapolate entire sequences, instead it uses sections of them, so in general the methods employed for this type of research do not have enough data to be able to compare the entirety of the code of one population to another.

Also intermediate traits is not of specific use when widespread synapomorphies occur, many cacti share traits but no recent common ancestors. And some times different forms of the same species appear rather different visually.

Out of curiosity, which papers have you read on the topic?

 

Just the Butterworth and Wallace stuff on Mamm, and on the Cacteae tribe, its a few years old.

Some time ago I read about some BTC clade stuff too.

by simple species standards, if they cannot breed with each other, they are not the same species.

I think that for cacti this definition has little value. Many plants considered separate species, even separate genera, can produce fertile offspring. Sometimes the thing that prevents them from breeding is flowering time, two genera may be perfectly compatible but one is a day flower pollinated by hummingbirds and the other is a night flower pollinated by moths. (Cleistocactus X Echinopsis is an example of this.) In this case the plants that can breed together can be grown side by side and an intermediate is highly unlikely. But in cultivation we can overcome reproductive barriers that are mainly mechanical, chemical, geological or a matter of timing.

If an intermediate forms and it is a single specimen, then we can often see indications of what it is. However by the time it has become it's own population this becomes obscured.

there is always chance of freak mutations through selfing

If freak mutations were common with selfing, then nearly every Lophophora williamsii grower would have freak plants. I think this assertion, that selfing can relate to mutation, deserves scrutiny. Petes are highly variable, but freaks are still somewhat rare, if anything consistency is more the rule for selfed plants, but when there are freaks they too tend to be consistent, for example the pigmentation of the skin varies a lot, but some things are not well known.

Numerous examples of plants are known, which are in cultivation but have not been found in nature.

I don't think that selfing is responsible for plants like this, otherwise they should be seen in habitat, because selfing is common.

I do think a lot of so called hybrids are selfed plants. The idea that the only thing to change is a tiny floral trait is ridiculous.

but when a large groups of traits are abberant there are two strong possibilities, one is that some sort of gene jumping event or transposon movement has occurred, ergo linkage in involved with the range of modified expressions. The other possibility is that alles are present in the individual which are not normally present in other individuals, indicating a hybrid or an unlikely horizontal (non-sexual) gene flow.

With mitochondrial DNA, an intermediate cannot be seen, it would appear to be the same genus as the mother in most cases. Linear diagrams cannot show this either.

[kadakuda]

good points, but i think this was misunderstood.

by simple species standards, if they cannot breed with each other, they are not the same species.

i am not saying that 2 different cannot breed, i am saying if 2 plants cannot cross (not necessarily limited by the fact they flower at different times, i mean really cant produce offspring) then they are not species. personally i find this to be one of the fundamental keys in being a species. i am not saying that if 2 plants breed, they ARE species.

If freak mutations were common with selfing, then nearly every Lophophora williamsii grower would have freak plants. I think this assertion, that selfing can relate to mutation, deserves scrutiny. Petes are highly variable, but freaks are still somewhat rare, if anything consistency is more the rule for selfed plants, but when there are freaks they too tend to be consistent, for example the pigmentation of the skin varies a lot, but some things are not well known.

theoretically, but they have evolved to self if other pollen sources are not available, and look at their spread and variation. even they send out a good number of freaks, we likely don't see more in the wild because many would simply die. i guess one could argue why we dont see more in cultivation, but i guess every seed batch doesnt need to show variegated or monstrose growth. it also *seems* just through little observation that plants that do not normally self have freakier babies when they do self. so for example fricii that doesnt self normally has interesting babies when they do self. be it mixed up something, or simply recessive traits surfacing, i dont know. but the point i was trying to make is it is a possibility, and not a rare one. so there will always be doubt in the resulting seeds/plants being a hybrid or a self. if no one had ever seen a crest before, and bread an astrophytum with a williamsii and got a crest, they may well be likely to assume they were hybrids because of the strange new growth, when it fact it likely just selfed. just an extreme example.

i would also venture to *guess* that species that are selfing plants are going to naturally be less diverse than plants that cross a lot and mix genes. so its not surprising things like fricii, diffusa, and other speceis that dont often self are more variable in appearance. just putting that out there.

i also think that jourdaniana is likely a hybrid, but its all speculation. not found in the wild, not found in the wild anymore and not in teh wild are 3 important things to consider. it could simply be they used to exist in a small locale and it was destroyed. who knows. maybe it was a true lophohora species without mixed blood and was the missing link between it and another group of cacti. maybe it is a freak that was selfed, perhaps spines are hidden in the genes of a select few and come out at the right crossroads...or maybe its a hybrid.

do you have ideas on how to distinguish hybrids? it can be a pretty difficult thing to accomplish with any kind of certainty. but i think in your situation above of unique looking plants that breed amongst themselves and cannot breed back to their parents, this would in fact constitute a new species. im no taxonomist but it seems logical to go that way.

perhaps a great example is Astrophytum. cross bred, interbred, hybridized to the max. now we have all kinds of mixed blood plants that have all kinds of freaky mutations. some claim some to be pure blood, assuming that is true (i bet its not 99% of the time) look at the diversity among a single species. all those genes were in there in some form or another and were just needing the right crosses and a cozy environment they wont die in. this is one reason i am especially skeptical of generea crosses involving astros. tey got such a mix in their genes that if selfed who knows what could pop up.

i feel the same about lophophora and other cacti, except teh mutation level is probably lower cause astros have been hybridized/selective bred so much more.

Edited January 25, 2010 by kadakuda

[Gunter]

Thanks for your considerate reply.

I believe I understand what you are saying now about the breeding and species.

But if a single transposon based genetic change renders an individual in a population incapable of breeding back to the population that sources it, it is questionable as a new species to me. But I am not a taxonomist, just a guy with a hobby who loves taxonomy.

I think that not only is L jordaniana a hybrid, I believe that it is a clone only form and that seed grown jordaniana is not true to type at all. A clone I lack actually, but have seen several times.

do you have ideas on how to distinguish hybrids?

No, that is the source of my question. I realized in reading the papers that I saw no way for the authors to identity intermediate populations in the current methodology. I am a bit annoyed at this, Martin Terry is allegedly doing genetic work on Lophophora that I think will fail to show if a plant is an intermediate. I think it will only indicate degrees of relation.

But I do have some ideas. I'd try to use molecular evidence, likely floral pigment related enzyme pathways. Comparing floral pigment related protein structures might indicate intermediate plants and or alleles in a population that came from an unexpected source.

i think in your situation above of unique looking plants that breed amongst themselves and cannot breed back to their parents, this would in fact constitute a new species. im no taxonomist but it seems logical to go that way.

I agree with you there, about the definition. However when we consider species we use linear relationships that are highly artificial, so if we found a species that was a cross that cannot breed back to the parents, we would not be able to tell, we would see it as related to one of the parents, most likely putting it into that same Genera, but it would seem like a more distant relative compared to the other species in the genus and the linear data cannot indicate what it is.

perhaps a great example is Astrophytum. all those genes were in there in some form or another and were just needing the right crosses and a cozy environment they wont die in.

A lot of those traits are due to mutations caused by mutagens like UV-light and X-ray radiation. I have an old cactus book that says if you bombard a flower with X-rays while it is pollinated, then the mutation rate can get as high as 60% of the population. SNP variation andframe shift mutation, damaged genes etc, much of what we find in astrophytum is the result of agents which promote rates of mutation far beyond what nature does. Thus, these genes were present in the natural plants, but not in the highly modified forms that they are now found it, ergo the are versions of the alleles that were not in existence before human interference.

Isn't the placement of Astrophytum a little odd in regards to cladistics?

It is one of the genera I think we should endeavor to get entire sequences for, comparing the proteins, enzymes and nucleotides of plants should be capable of indicating intermediates if we employ hybrid linear/non-linear degrees of relation analysis programs.

Frankly non-linear clade diagrams should be invented and employed

If you take any cactus species and do to it what the Japanese have been doing to Astrophytum and Gymnocalycium, then tons of non-hybrid diversity will result. Ever consider the impact of trait linkage on chemistry in regards to cacti? It turns out the plants that appear different are nearly always chemically different too. It is next to impossible to affect one allele without affecting the expression of dozens of others. Nearly every unique specimen of alkaloid rich cacti has turned out to be an exception in terms of chemistry, when compared to the standard set by its species, which is often a range as opposed to a single value.

[tripsis]

an unlikely horizontal (non-sexual) gene flow

Is this even possible in plants? In bacteria it is understood that this happens frequently and how it happens, but how would it occur in plants?

[Gunter]

Is this even possible in plants? In bacteria it is understood that this happens frequently and how it happens, but how would it occur in plants?

 

Some consider it remotely possible under specific circumstances, others doubt it.

One animal literally absorbs the genes of some of the food it eats, a sea slug does this to absorb the chlorophyll making genes from photosynthetic organisms, but has to absorb the chloroplasts to be able to use them, despite having been shown to literally absorb the genes as their own and transcribe them.

Then in some fungi there are mechanisms of horizontal transmission as well, though different than with the sea slug.

Then in regard to plants, at least one infectious fungal like organism can insert its genes into those of the plant, much like a virus, this may indicate that the potential exists for it to occur in highly unlikely circumstances. Imagine plants have been around for about 300,000,000 years. Now say an event is so remote that it occurs once every 100,000 years, on our scale it has a statistical likelihood of having happened 3000 times. In the consideration of plant taxonomy the scales we must consider are not so long as hundreds of millions of years, but they are significant blocks of time that can be thought of as geological time.

Cacti are thought to be around 30,000,000 years old though... so if an event is remote enough to have a likelihood of occurring only once in 100,000 years, it could have occurred hundreds of times still. I think intergeneric hybrids that give rise to new stable populations are something that is rare, but not impossible, for intermediates have been seen to occur from time to time in various cacti genera. So if the improbable has happened in this family only on occasion, even only every ten thousand years, or once in over a thousand human generations for perspective, then it has probably occurred thousands of times. Over the life of the cactus family we can expect there to be many forms of plants that are extinct, including likely many ancestors and also many so called evolutionary dead ends.

I also don't like the idea of static species definitions and type specimens. Does nature put stock in the definition of an organism according to a single specimen or example? Or rather does nature employ a population which seldom remains the same over time? Particularly over the long periods of time involved? Do we imagine our species is so temporary that we need only consider things as they seem right now? But then if we do endure, what then when the population dynamics shift and new traits become dominant in the descending generations of the plants we have statically defined? Will we suppose that extinction occurred because the old form is no more? Even as the descendants of the old form exist? What is extinction but a failure to reproduce? Not to pass a form but to continue a process by which over time and generations forms change. Now when we see an old representation that we cannot find an example of, we claim it is extinct, yet what if never failed to reproduce? What if over generations the form changed in the population? How would we tell it was not extinct? I think we would assume extinction for want of a form, but that this assumption is not actually reasonable in all the cases it is made.

Anyway I am interested in the origins of the family and it's tribes and these are my thoughts on this.

[tripsis]

I'm aware of the sea slug example, but not of horizontal gene flow in fungi. Can you elucidate on the latter example some more?

So then, are you talking about horizontal gene flow between a fungus and a plant, or a plant and a plant. If the latter, the only circumstances I could imagine this happening in, would be through a symbiotic relationship such as parasitism. This then poses the question, are cacti parasitised by any other plants?

I also don't like the idea of static species definitions and type specimens. Does nature put stock in the definition of an organism according to a single specimen or example? Or rather does nature employ a population which seldom remains the same over time? Particularly over the long periods of time involved? Do we imagine our species is so temporary that we need only consider things as they seem right now?

Type specimens exist to give taxonomists something to work with, so that they can relate what they see in front of them to other specimens and organisms. Despite this though, I doubt many scientists would see a species as static; it goes against the very concept of evolution.

But then if we do endure, what then when the population dynamics shift and new traits become dominant in the descending generations of the plants we have statically defined? Will we suppose that extinction occurred because the old form is no more? Even as the descendants of the old form exist?

It is almost necessary to see a population that has significantly changed from what it once was as a new species. If we don't do this, every organism today would be considered the same species as the cenancestor, which would then indicate we are all the same species too.

Taxonomy only exists to help us understand the relationships of organisms, but above the level of species, it is pretty arbitrary. Even at the level of species is can be arbitrary, as plants and bacteria both defy the BSC. What then do we decide makes a plant or bacteria a separate species? No doubt, a set of convenient, yet arbitrary traits. But not everything fits into a neat little box the way we would like and that is something we need to come to terms with, rather than trying to make everything fit into a box.

Perhaps we shouldn't limit the concept of extinction to the failure to reproduce. Or perhaps we need a new term which refers to "extinction"through speciation. If speciation occurs and the parent species ceases to exist, yet the daughter species continue to exist, then we could say that one species has become extinct, even though the genes are largely being carried on. This is called pseudoextinction. If we consider "new" species which arise from speciation to be the same species, then down the line, things will get very confusing. Reptiles, birds and mammals would all have to be considered the same, even though clearly they are not. Thus, we need to draw the line somewhere.

[kadakuda]

Reptiles, birds and mammals would all have to be considered the same, even though clearly they are not. Thus, we need to draw the line somewhere.

this is what the ranks are for, no? now i totally agree classification has its flaws, but it has its uses as well. different ranks likely kingdom, phylum, order, class ect etc all distinguish degrees of relation, which i suppose could be linked with evolution if one were to spend the time figuring it out.

when it comes down to species and anything below that rank the ability to reproduce becomes important. whereas above that although it may happen it is not a necessity. so with things like reptiles, mammles and birds, they are teh same, they are all animals, all chordates etc. then the further we go down the system they get divided up and reptiles/birds get placed together and mammals are split off due to their differences. further down that line birds and reptiles get split up, then snakes/lizards get split from turtles, crocodiles and tatars....then snakes and lizards get split. then the differnet families of lizards get split up due to morphology mostly and so it goes.

one thing that may be interesting to look at is milksnakes and kingsnakes. They are commonly hybridized yet some are of different genera. but that said, it is granted that all sub-species are able to cross. some other stuff such as carpet pythons and green tree pythons have bred, very different plants but of similar origin and relation. dogs and wolves, cat species, god knows how many "species" are able to produce viable young.

the argument that it wouldnt happen in nature is a bit of a short sighted one. granted with the freak stuff people do to cause mutations like you mentioned...but x-rays, UV, chemicals etc are all available in nature....so like you say, it may be a freak chance in nature, but with all the time and numbers of plants, it is possible.

so although i highly suspect that a crested hanazono A. asterias would happen in nature, it is not impossible. nor woult the carpetxgreen tree pythons.

other people use geography as a big part, which baffles me. peyote for example, some people seem to wonder why williamsii has such a huge range compared to the otehr species. some people claim its their ability to self pollinate...but looking at their chemistry, and being the only viable mescaline option...alongside known human consumption for thousands of years, it seems possible, to me probable, that humans played a massive role in its spread. intentional or not.

and once a living thing populates a large area, especially of different ecosystems, variations, or mutations, occur which may ro may not become "normal". garter snakes are wonderful examples and share a similar problem with cacti in that taxonomists dont know what the hell is going on it seems. there are many sub-species which are not easily identifiable because of variation...now is this intermediates or just mutation? with them, we rely on scale counts and coloration in the field...but i have found some garters that overlap with scale counts, and colour, which would make keying anything out, according to their descriptions, impossible.

as far as i can tell, to make any of it work, the current system wont work. but I'll be damned if i can think of something that does solve anything, cause nature is an ever changing organism that just cant be stuck with a name forever. just like old binomials become aged and obsolete, as can species as they change into new "forms". look at people. Asians, Anglos, Africans and pacific people are generally quite different in morphology. i am white canadian and my wife is asian, so our babies will become intermediates, which for use humans are somewhat easy to tell. but if you saw a picture of the baby and knew nothing of it, how would you tell what its parents were?

[Gunter]

In the case of fungi and horizontal gene flow, it depends on how you view it. Many viral agents exist in fungi that are theoretically capable of mediating gene flow, and the proximity of hyphal threads and massive surface area likewise seems to increase the chances of a viral agent facilitating such a transfer. However in the case I had in mind it might be a little more controversial to think of it as horizontal gene flow, but it seems to fit. That is the case of anastomosis, where hyphae fuse to form a single hyphae with multiple nuclei, this can be considered horizontal gene flow as that the event is separated from sexual recombination often by immense periods of time, and 2, the event allows the resulting hyphae to utilize the many of the transcription products of the alleles involved, ergo the absorbed genetic material is able to be employed despite not being that which codes for the cell walls involved in containing the combined cytoplasmic products.. This process has allowed non-living spores to be employed as a source of alleles by using another hyphae to absorb the genetic material and then recombination is promoted at the time of gametogenesis, something that indicates a non-sexual process as that one side of this process in this case was not living, but still contained intact genetic material which was absorbed.

In regard to cactus parasites, ,many are known, some are just amazing. One that is just plain cool is Tristerix aphyllus.

I have seen some form of dodder all over cacti in death valley as well. Some cacti can form chimeras, over the last 30million years it might have been the case that such an event of combined meristematic material happened a few times, if a protoplastic type fusion event followed by a change in chromosome count then a new organism can be created. Remote to have that occur in nature, but we could easily make a new plant in a lab using that method. If a virus infected a chimera, the odds of horizontal type transmission is increased. Many tissue sucking insects carry viruses that infect plant, if insects such as mosquitoes can be a vector for transfer of nucleotides (pathogenic organisms have them) from one person to another, then a similar thing might occur in plants. I might add that male mosquitoes drink plant sap, not blood.

Then there are L-form bacterial associations, presumably something like this form of symbiosis facilitated the endosymbiosis of mitochondria and chloroplasts in eukaryotic cells. This also puts different genetic materials in close proximity, potentially facilitating horizontal transmission under some circumstances.

Type specimens exist to give taxonomists something to work with, so that they can relate what they see in front of them to other specimens and organisms. Despite this though, I doubt many scientists would see a species as static; it goes against the very concept of evolution.

The idea of a scientist humors me. Scientists are nothing but researchers. I've taken academic vascular plant taxonomy, I know and talk with some plant taxonomists. You'd be surprised how many have never thought about how species are not individuals but populations of alleles, so when they find a new allele they assume they found a new species or sub-species or variety, it is rather silly. My opinion though does not come as a total outsider to taxonomy or science, I've generated my own cladistic diagrams using bootstrap methods before, but specifically for BP codon related regions that I obtained online, not ones I got from the organisms themselves.

It is almost necessary to see a population that has significantly changed from what it once was as a new species. If we don't do this, every organism today would be considered the same species as the cenancestor, which would then indicate we are all the same species too.

I understand what you are sating, but it is not reflective of the concept I was attempting to relate. You see I have no problem typing new species that have emerged from old ones, cases of divergent speciation being clear. However the problem is when over generations the alleles in the population shift and the visual traits change in reflection of this, in this case the population has not given rise to new species, anymore than each distinct form of dog is a new species. However with dogs we can recognize the species and employ a type system as a breeding standard. We can impose no such breeding standard upon nature, nor can we always recognize a variation of a species when it defies the type, even if it is the same population that the type specimen was a member of, just a later generation, and no new species have emerged, thus it would appear that the type species is extinct, when the species is alive and well but the type was not the species, but rather a combination of alleles that represented the species at one time but since then fails. Genetic work is leading us into solving this problem, but type specimens do not help unless they include genetic data, preferable multiple complete sequences from many members of a species population, the expense is prohibitive, but it will not be this way forever. Maybe one day we will have terrahertz scanners that can give us molecular data from intact plants.

Taxonomy only exists to help us understand the relationships of organisms, but above the level of species, it is pretty arbitrary.

I may disagree, I see the goals of taxonomy as complex.

The concept that it facilitates understanding predisposes us to the ideology that it won't lead to mistaken conclusions, which if it is arbitrary then understanding would not matter. If the system was arbitrary then all we would have to do is name things, not try to sort things out, because with names we can then talk about the plants, but taxonomy is not about providing names we can talk about, despite armchair philosophers claiming otherwise, it is as you mention about relaying an understanding, an understanding that I would like to stress has practical value in application when it is apt. To understand nature allows us to interact with it, otherwise the simple religious explanations would have sufficed long ago, because they would allow us to talk about the things that exist and give us an understanding that is arbitrary. But then understanding and arbitrary seem rather mutually exclusive concepts to me.

The term pseudoextinction makes sense to me, thanks for sharing it!

Maybe cacti are mammals?

Take a mammillaria, it provides shelter for it's offspring which often grow adjacent to it, thus nursing them, Then it can have a milk like latex substance, it has nipples, can't forget those eh? And then it has hair or wool. Cacti strike me as closer to mammals than any other plant. I am being a bit silly, but in honesty some traits of cacti and mammals are good examples of convergent evolution. It would be funny if a reptile ate a cactus and then somehow absorbed genes for fur and then started the mammal order, but that is so implausible I should attribute it to Terrence Mckenna... yeah.

the argument that it wouldnt happen in nature is a bit of a short sighted one. granted with the freak stuff people do to cause mutations like you mentioned...but x-rays, UV, chemicals etc are all available in nature....so like you say, it may be a freak chance in nature, but with all the time and numbers of plants, it is possible.

The argument is that what happens in japan has caused more variation to emerge from SNP's and frame shift mutations than have emerged in any cactus line in over 30million years and that as such the example of astrophytums is like that of the dog: exceptional. One cannot take the variation that is known to occur in dogs to indicate that because it can exist in the domesticated species it can exist on a similar order in the wild species. I find that intergeneric hybrids are far more plausible than spontaneous freaks. For the freak argument to hold sway with me I'd like more evidence of it, examples, from nature itself, not from horticulture. I am well aware of fertile natural intergeneric hybrids in cacti.

peyote for example, some people seem to wonder why williamsii has such a huge range compared to the otehr species. some people claim its their ability to self pollinate...but looking at their chemistry, and being the only viable mescaline option...alongside known human consumption for thousands of years, it seems possible, to me probable, that humans played a massive role in its spread. intentional or not.

I agree wholeheartedly. What intrigues me is something I have read recently about specimens found in areas where camps occurred, outside the reported range of Peyote. I recall Teotz mentioned this and a willy form L, will var echinata, and then M. Terry has a page with a photo of the same type saying it is a "camp follower" This illustrates two things to me, number one is that you are right, people likely played a huge role in the spread of this plant. The removal of the tufts, which often contain seeds in larger plants, prior to eating, could seed an area in theory. The second thing that was indicated to me, is that Teotz has been doing some incredible research and has a lot more knowledge about these things than was the case a couple years ago. I underestimated the validity of what Teotz was kind enough to share, which clearly was not an invention. People who enjoy the warpath might not see it, but Teotz has become a valuable source of information through being willing to examine and relate what many others have dismissed.

\

. i am white canadian and my wife is asian, so our babies will become intermediates, which for use humans are somewhat easy to tell. but if you saw a picture of the baby and knew nothing of it, how would you tell what its parents were?

Great example! Now imagine your baby was self fertile and we got to see the decendants.

We'd hardly have a clue what had been going on.

I think we can largely solve the problems facing taxonomy.

I would think a species definition of a species as a set of alleles in population, if something cannot normally share alleles with the population it is a different species, even if it fully compatible in terms of fertility under special circumstances. This defines an intermediate as a combination of alleles from two populations, not two specimens, though that is also the case. If the intermediate becomes it's own isolated population and allele set, then it is a new species.

All previous type specimens should be considered examples of the species at the time of collection of the type, future collections should involve samples from which genetic material can be recovered and population types should be established that have samples of many specimens. We can use pictures and genetic samples to form new types, thus preventing the needless killing of specimens for typing.

The binomial system should be preserved but an alphanumeric sister system should be erected allowing computational reference to a species and allowing the numbers to not only provide a form of reference, which a binomial name is attached to, but the numeric system should also indicate degrees of relation of species and genera to each other. KPCOFGS each should have a numerical correlate with 6 kingdoms (the sixth is viruses) so K1,K2, K3 etc A similar situation for the other aspects of the current order. This is to be a sort of taxonomic bar code system to which is correlated molecular data including protein structure and nucleotide sequences, known ORF's, mitochondrial sequences etc( though mitochondria would also have their own numerical designation in my system, being tracked both as a form of life and a part of another form of life, chloroplasts as well) and in addition to the molecular data the species codes would also correlate to floral formulas, detailed and standardized photographs, GPS data(can be hidden for endangered species) and other such things. This multiple data set incorporates all previous taxonomy, including floral methods, binomial names etc, and adds a standardized data system that must be applied in a manner for computational studies anyway. This system should allow the use of the old system while allowing increased capacity for the recognition of intermediates and combined forms, as well as freaks, and it should compensate for dynamic shifts in populations in regard to their alleles.

Kind of like a social security number (something we have in the states, it is our barcode essentially) for species.

With people I would employ a subsystem that tracked Y chromosomes and mitochondrial lines, but would fit into the larger system, which would contain both reticulated and linear relationships. Reticulated or webbed cladistics programs need to be engineered, but they can be made with modifications to current programs. The entire project could be erected in a few years and would be maintained by strict rules that were enforced by computers, not people who can mess with the taxonomy at whim like David Hunt.

I'd envision 3 types of species status, suspected but unevaluated, evidenced by evaluation and unsupported after evaluation, (can be a simple S,E and U)

But then this is what you would get if you let an aspie INTJ modify the system.

I have put a lot of thought into this. But then I am a nobody when it all comes down to it, so I have no influence or say in how people view things.

Edited January 26, 2010 by Archaea

[kadakuda]

i had a big long post and closed the laptop to go do something and the fricken battery died!

here area couple points i was wondering about.

the system you propose, like a bar code, seems intriguing. but are you saying you want some kind of alphanumeric code for each trait? that would be an insanely long code! or were you meaning have a code for the species and a few other key concepts that can be linked to a data set, say online or in a library? that would make sense to me, and ten have access to all the photos, descriptions, tests etc done on that plant and the population and so on. i wonder though, why this could no be done with the current binomial system, just use the letters, which are names, link to the data files.

i have to say it, i know you were messing around a bit....but cant helpbut point it out. you think extreme mutations such as those seen from growers is hard to beleive, but reptiles eating cacti to become mammals? lol

just buggin ya.

but on that note i do find mutations in the wild to *probably* be quite common. things like solar flares, natural chemical spikes etc could all theoretically cause similar mutations, on top of "natural" freaks. although we do se many mutations in the wild like monstrose and crests, i think the comparison is a little unfair. in cultivation we take care of our handicapped, so tehy can live on and many times even reproduce, something that just rarely happens in teh wild. how many variegated peyote do we see in the wild? not many, but they can happen from wild seed, which points out the obvious that the wild is just not friendly enough to let retarded plants live.

if we did an experiment and took 10000 seeds collected from wild plants, and 10000 seeds from greenhouses, and compare i think we would be surprised. now,i have no doubt in some species like various astrophytum, the cultivated ones would have far more freaks, cause they have been bred so much that way. but i suspect with things like lophohpora where freaks are still more or less new, we might see a more even number.

would also like to touch base on our involvement with breeding. we are not somehow separated from nature, despite our manipulation of it. one thing i never can comprehend is that in our conservation efforts, we are intentionally STOPPING natural spread. examples are everywhere, but lets say we see a couger family make a great journey over to prince edward island, i would bet anything it is either shot, relocated or put in a zoo. this happened with a grizzley bear a few years back that swam to vancouver island.

i am not saying this is likely with most cacti, although maybe faster growing ones. my point is that we spread species and stop the spread of species all the time, and this is generally agreed on unnatural. tat said, if a bird eats a cactus fruit in mexico, flies to arizona, shits and it grows a new population, that is considered natural (although with human spread we would probably not even realize this and assume some dumb human introduced it).

in these situations, distribution means virtually nothing aside from favoured climates. naatural barriers, ie oceans and mountains, mean nothign in todays world, because other species, namely animals, spread seeds and plants around the globe. so is natural spread really spread without human involvement, or are humans considered natural?

before you think i am high, i am getting at human breeding. now i will jump my add ass over to fire ants and mealy bug farming. this is a species that truly farms another species. why mention this? because we are on the japanese about breeding mutants, and dog breeders etc. these are all one species farming another. granted, ants dont have access to the technologies we do. although it could be possible they selective breed jucier/better mealies...i dunno, never asked.

so where does one draw the line on natural? because for me it is not a line easily drawn, unless we conclude its all natural. even or chemical experiments, are basically extracts of plants, or whatever, that we just simply mechanically apply in very specific ways. its all carbon on carbon in a way.

so having a superkabuto in the wild may seem unlikely, but perhaps not so much as we may think. in more prosperous species even more so. people have bread maybe a 10's of millions of say a species of bird, but how many have happened in the wild? humans gave chickens bigger thighs and breasts for our food, nature switched around lizards and birds, give and take away flight, ability to swim. natures mutants so far as i can tell, are far more impressive, albeit slower to happen.

[Gunter]

or were you meaning have a code for the species and a few other key concepts that can be linked to a data set, say online or in a library?

Yes the latter, but it provides information via the code, it is not arbitrary it is a data containing code.

i wonder though, why this could no be done with the current binomial system, just use the letters, which are names, link to the data files.

Because they are arbitrary, containing no data, and to use them in a computational manner requires numerical designations anyway. The binomial names are kind of crappy anyway, new invalid ones are being made all the time, it is a joke. What I am talking about is a code that doesn't allow whim to add to it, basically a computer mediated taxonomic system based on the old one but removing the problems of the old system, one of the largest problems being people like David Hunt, but the arbitrary nature of the names is also a major potential obstacle. What I am talking about is a code system that employs the old system, so rejects nothing, but involves data of relation and taxonomic position in the code. It takes things that are being done anyway but uses a special standard, something not being done with the genetic work yet.

I do find the idea of wild mutations, to be the cause of things like L. jourdaniana to be improbable. The thing is that this is not a deletion or a knockout mutation, it is the presence of traits that are not present in the alleged genus. A lack of pigment, a very common mutation in seedlings, is not the emergence of a new trait, but rather the damaging of an old one. The issue is that mutations resulting in new traits have not been adequately demonstrated, let alone in these plants. Granted deletion type mutations occur, but these cannot explain new traits. Knockout mutations and inbreeding can explain the Astrophytum diversity in japan, but even in those cases new traits do not appear, just different arrangements of older ones that are well known. So for me the theory that things like Lophophora jourdaniana are natural mutations seems a bit unreasonable until someone can demonstrate something of a similar nature in horticulture or nature, and to the best of my knowledge this has not been done. Variegation is an example of this, this is a change in an old trait, not a new one showing up.

if we did an experiment and took 10000 seeds collected from wild plants, and 10000 seeds from greenhouses, and compare i think we would be surprised.

I doubt that if we sowed a billion seeds of an inbred species that any new traits would show up, but a million freaks could occur.

I'm a big fan of yours Kada, so I am glad to know that if you find any new traits emerging you will let the world know!

If you bred 100,000 wolves in a generation, are you ever going to get a Chihuahua? (of course not) But you are going to get mutations and diversity in the traits present in the species.

I think a superkabuto could easily show up in the wild, it does not meet what I think of as a new trait containing plant. It might be rare, but it doesn't contain anything that wasn't already there, rather it just has altered expression. If someone could demonstrate Lophophora jourdaniana, the real form, not the inbred seedlings resulting from it, as a product of variability of Lophophora then I think they would have. Clearly the superkabuto has been demonstrated to be a product of variability and mutation, but I do not believe that we can extrapolate that to forms which have not been so demonstrated. I think that the truth is we don't know how things like L jourdaniana come to be, but some armchair internet philosophers who want to pretend they are Lophophora experts want to try to promote claims based on their own reasoning, but that have no supportive evidence, and they present these unsupported hypothesis as alternatives to what they claim are unsupported hypothesis. I want to challenge these assertions and so seek explaination with more detail than a casual dismissal of intermediates based upon the failed attempts of people in horticulture to produce intermediates, when those same people have also failed to produce what is being considered as a possible intermediate through any other methods, in other words we should keep our minds open as to the potentials and an intermediate is not less tenable in many of these cases than freak mutation is, in terms of explaining forms with traits that are highly unusual in that they are typically absent from the standard.

Of course I could be wrong.

[kadakuda]

cant argue with that, it all seems pretty cool.

on the jourd. front. what are you saying is new with jourds that is not seen in other lophs? only think i can see are the filament colours. their spines are larger and stay around, but other lophs have spines, although only when really young. but we could say they are not new, just a variation of what is already there.

for the filament colour, i have not seen another with such pink filaments. some plants have pink styles, so who knows how style/filament/petal colour genes can mix up together, i have zero idea on that but it seems, to the ignorant (me), plausible.

before the sun rises, one last thing.

I do find the idea of wild mutations, to be the cause of things like L. jourdaniana to be improbable. The thing is that this is not a deletion or a knockout mutation, it is the presence of traits that are not present in the alleged genus. A lack of pigment, a very common mutation in seedlings, is not the emergence of a new trait, but rather the damaging of an old one. The issue is that mutations resulting in new traits have not been adequately demonstrated, let alone in these plants.

i see where you are coming from. but i would disagree. demonstrated or not, without new developments in nature, things would not progress very far if they only "lost" stuff or degraded. at the moment i cannot think of an example with lophophora, but birds for example created wings. perhaps those were just modified hands.....or feathers, maybe modified scales. i guess its all modification when we get down to it. nothing is really "new" in that sense. but can we really say any of the freaks from japan are new either? all the astros i have seen look as if they were simply modified from original characteristics.

with things like lophophora, despite its long use, i dont think we will ever get a good record of their history....they just dont seem likely to show up as a fossil, so our knowledge of them is literally a hickup in time, where not much change tends to happen, "naturally".

[Gunter]

what are you saying is new with jourds that is not seen in other lophs? only think i can see are the filament colours. their spines are larger and stay around, but other lophs have spines, although only when really young. but we could say they are not new, just a variation of what is already there.

I am not aware of any spines like them in any lophophora plants I know of other than the jourd. The spines of other lophophoras can be frequently felt and seen when the plants are young, the difference between jourd and other lophophora in this regard, for the clonal form is very strong, but for the inbred forms of it the difference is less strong. Then the color of the flower and the filaments is also an interesting trait, by itself it is noteworthy but not a large deal, but in concert with the other other differences... One of these is that the flower has a somewhat unusual shape as well. I think that it is a hybrid between some Lophophora specie and something like Turbinicarpus alonsoi, which jourdaniana reminds me of a great deal.

[kadakuda]

The spines of other lophophoras can be frequently felt and seen when the plants are young

yes, that's right. what i was getting at was that you were saying mutant don't add anything, and lophophora already have spines, albiet small and when immature. but jourds spines would not be new, simply enhanced.

i am not disagreeing the possibility of jourds being a hybrid, but i am not closing my mind on simply another lophophora variant of some kind. i have never seen a real turb/loph hybrid in person, but i would expect that a hybrid, especially with alonsii, would have a little more stem morphology differences,, which jourd seems pretty in line with otehr lophs except the spines/flowers. all my jourds are seed grown, but i am not sure why you are saying they are inferior. is it because of being inbred? so are many williamsii as we say above, but you mentioned that we should of seen more variation through inbreeding, so it seems normal that spine size would vary...even if not inbred...i think anyway.

just playing devils advocate bro i have no firm stance on jourdaniana aside that it is for sure related to Lophophora lol.

edit, get some pictures happening.

i was thinking a bit about the spines on lophs the other day, and just now realized, that it isnt really just young lophs that have them. even new pups on very old lophs can have them. i find it especially noticeable when growing super fast (as in a graft) where the wool is often less dense, and small spines, at least when small, are quite apparent. now i am not really in anyway way trying to claim lophophora as spined cactus, although technically they are, and im not trying to compare them so much to jourds, but merely pointing out they carry the trait and seems quite plausible for lophs to be able to produce larger spines if the right matches were made.

here are some pics of some lophs with spines, none are "young" in the sense of their beginning of life from seed, but its important to keep in mind they are all small and show spines in newer growth.

LW caespitosa

LW decipiens

L fricii variegated. this is a small pup from an 18 year old 22cm plant (which is not mine, only a few pups were gifted)

L. fricii var albiflora - mature and flowering as you can see

lastly a jourd of similar size, much larger spines no doubt

for me spines and lophs is an obvious trait, although weak, quite apparent. then there are all the other locked up traits, perhaps not quite as simple as simple recessive traits that can be bred out withing a couple generations. in the above pics, like any person who grows lophophora already knows, spines are generally only detectable on new growth and young growth, except jourds of course.

but they have them. so just like fruit trees are bred to flower earlier and grow larger, so could loph spines, theoretically.

there is already selective breeding being done on lophophora for enhanced characteristics, although i am not aware of any being done with spines...yet.

here are some examples of my lines which are not hybridized, just simply selectively bred

L. diffusa

Edited January 31, 2010 by kadakuda

[kadakuda]

L. fricii

some random loph variation

food for thought, turb flowers

[Gunter]

I believe that more traits vary in jourdaniana that just spines. For something called a williamsii selection there are host of traits that are inconsistent with williamsii. Included in this is the difference of the juvenile form verses adult, which reminds me of the pediocactus group, to a degree. Smiths notion of mammillaria playing a role in the form also interests me.

And I also believe that it is not true to seed, that the original selection was a clone only form and what is sold as seed now in not identical, because of meiosis. Ergo in the inbred prodigy of the jourdaniana there is some diversity of traits.

Interestingly photographs of the form from the 1970s do not show the same form as is common today. The jourdaninana depicted in the protologue photo of Habermann clearly shows a mostly white or light pink flower with red stripes. Then there is the quote here, from Smiths Essay on the literature of active cacti

The inability of L. jourdaniana to be fertilized by others in the genus has not withstood scientific rigor as it has been crossed with both L. diffusa and L. williamsii by the Russian botanist Serge Batov. It would appear Habermann himself, for unknown reasons, was unable to successfully hybridize L. jourdaniana.

http://www.cactus-mall.com/mss/old.html#33

So now given that the form Habermann depicts is clearly not what is being passed around as L. jourdaniana, and Habermann reported different fertility as well. It seems that there is evidence that what is being passed around as the jourdaniana is not synonymous with the original specimen that was given the name.

but then smith also relates:

The original material used by Habermann to describe L. jourdaniana was collected from an undocumented locality in Mexico and described as having rose-violet or violet-red flowers, persistent spines on young areoles, and having an inability to be fertilized by L. diffusa,L. fricii, or L. williamsii and its varieties.

SO is the form that is found today able to be crossed with other lophophoras or not?

Some alonsoi:

Turbinicarpus is polyphyletic, I think in terms of intermediates that Lophophora might be.

As a genus it might even be an intermediate in origination.

The relationship of the forms of lophophora is not clear, but I agree with the notion of diffusa as potentially ancestral is worth exploring.

A lovely thelocactus reminiscent of lophophora:

I'd love to see a multiple angle pictorial comparison of the flowers of all known lophophora forms.

[kadakuda]

I'd love to see a multiple angle pictorial comparison of the flowers of all known lophophora forms.

its in the works, and probably not just me. but one thing to keep in mind is that anyone who studies these plants are limited in the plants they are able to obtain...now things like jourdaniana, most of us are stuck with seeds/seed grown plants, so we are basically stuck with what seed companies serve us and our own identification of plants once mature (takes a lot of time).

what i mean is say i buy some jourd seeds from koehres for example. lets say i doccument the morphology, but that is only true to the plants i grew, which according to some are inbred and not "true to type"...although like you mentioned earlier, a type sepcimen cannot accurately depict a species when it comes to variations.

when we look at the variation of williamsii, or even more so fricii, it seems reasonable to accept jourdaniana in all its forms...be it tall growing, low growing (which can also be highly dependent on environment), spine size etc...

SO is the form that is found today able to be crossed with other lophophoras or not?

i couldnt say...i had to get all my jourds via growing from seed as plants always got caught up in customs...will fin out next year i hope. i have been told by other breeders though that they are not as "easy" to set seed as other lophophora, even when crossed with each other.

another interesting plant to play with may be Thelocactus setspinus. i have heard tey are good pollen donors for making neat plants. i will be trying them with lophs this spring, i dont fully expect hybrids with lophs, but worth a shot as they apparently go well with some other cacti.

but my real curiosity is this: what makes you think it is a hybrid? what exact characteristics make it that much different? i have my opinions, but i want to know exactly what you think makes them a possible hybrid.

i am hoping to try loph swith trubs, a few mamm mutts i have, strombo, obregonia and thelocactus this year. thus far though, i have only managed obregonia and diffusa to set seed.

[kadakuda]

in case anyone is interested, and is able to read it, here is the jourd document. sorry for its quality...best i have right now.

Habermann1975.pdf

Habermann1975.pdf

Habermann1975.pdf

[Gunter]

Yeah...I can't read that.

I was using the 2006 Rowley write-up that includes a photo of the Habermann specimen.

I think that in many cactus families, some of what we take for species are actually stable intermediates.

I noted that on this rather nice page:

http://www.kadasgarden.com/CLophophora.html

It is mentioned that jourdaniana is self sterile, while Willy is self fertile.

I note that the jourd has specimens that grow elongated columnar, not globular or level with the earth.

The flower color and morphology is inconsistent with williamsii

the retention of spines again contrasts strongly with typical Lophophora variation.

The flowering habit in some specimens also seems aberrant, including in amount and arrangement of flowers in a more ring like fashion, again reminiscent of pediocacti.

The plant was said to be collected in the wild, yet has not been recollected and is novel. What is largely available now are the inbred descendants of a single specimen.

If the plant was an unlikely hybrid it would be expected to fit the type of scenario that jourdaniana does.

The idea that it is a version of williamsii seems more unlikely to me than it being a hybrid.

The way it grows, the columnar stature with age (pictured above, see the plants next to it to understand that the specimen is not etiolated), the color of the flowers, the spines on the young growth etc, it reminds me of pediocactus a great deal. In a review of the relatives of pediocacti, turbinicarpus is quite noteworthy and retains these traits. The jourdaniana flower is rather like that of a few turbinicarpus, likewise turbinicarpus young growth has spines with a very similar arrangement. In the older growth of turbinicarpus the spines grow in a very interesting manner, almost like fused tufts. I could easily imagine that a hybrid between a loph and a turb could result in a plant with pedio-like juvinal spines, but then as an adult still have tufts due to the gene interaction.

Then the Butterworth papers indicate that Lophophora is a poorly understood genus.

For example in Butterworth et al 2002

The loph group on the parsimony diagram (page 263)

includes:

Acharagma

Lophophora

and Obregonia

And then on that page there is a group just past strombocactus:

That group contains:

Ariocarpus

Turbinicarpus

Epithelantha

and pediocactus simpsonii

But then on to the next page(264)

Now in this group the loph group is allied with:

Acharagma

Lophophora

Astrophytum

Echinocactus

Homalocephala

and Obregonia

and if you follow the lines well you will find Pediocactus simpsonii as a close relative.

It would seem to me that the only tenable answer for these cladistic relationships is that intermediates are occurring and are not being recognized because of the means of extrapolation. Some of these genera, or species, seem to be stabilized intermediates, and frankly I am unsure which ones are.

I believe that the self fertile forms of lophophora might be stable intermediates between two genera. I also believe that L jourdaniana could be a hybrid, and given then traits it has I'd guess that turbinicarpus could be involved. Jourd behaves like a pedio-relative to me, more so than loph in general. I could be wrong, but that is my take at the moment. Please forgive that it does not match that of the experts, ergo those with the most experience.

[kadakuda]

was the rowley article "Lophophora - species and cultivars"? I have to admit, that is one of the lophophora publications i tend to disagree with the most....not that i dont have a great deal of respect for the author, but i personally completely disagree with all lophophora being one species. but even that article has some points worth remembering.

Please forgive that it does not match that of the experts, ergo those with the most experience.

not sure about you, but for me i tend to listen with equal attention to the "experts" as i do the "novices". all i can say is that when i read something it tend to question what i already believe, or opens my eyes to something i was never aware of. be it Anderson, Rowley, MS, Trout, yourself, cactus breeders i know, teo or even my wife who knows very little about cacti but asks such simple but overlooked questions. now matter what, there is often some kind of sense to everyone's outlook, and if we are open to the possibilities of such processes, even if we think they are morons or experts, we tend to gain at least a little...something. thats why i like forums so much, they tend to raise so many questions we would not have thought of had we jsut thoguht in the "standard taxonomic way". thats how i feel anyway, so go ahead and share all you care to, you have at least one interested reader even if you pose a theory and it is proven to be wrong in the future, it may not have been if the thoery hadn't been brought up. thats whats so fun about science, we are always "correcting" ourselves...at least until that needs correction

on the jourd note

The way it grows, the columnar stature with age

great point, this is something i have not seen in williamsii. the very few truly mature seed grown jourds i have seen in person tended to be rather tall as well. although some diffusa tend to grow like this.

The idea that it is a version of williamsii seems more unlikely to me than it being a hybrid.

i personally dont think it is a williamsii either....im not really sure what to call it, but im not sure about hybrids. possible, sure, but i am not near convinced just yet.

I believe that the self fertile forms of lophophora might be stable intermediates between two genera.

are you referring to williamsii? you think it is an intermediate. that is an interesting thought, one i have never thought of before.

i like the pedio thoughts as well, another thing i have never made a connection with, which also brings all sorts of thoughts/questions to mind lol....i'll spare you ...i tend to have 1000 questions on small things...im sure you have a life to maintain as well, other than here lol.

correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems to me that you are putting great faith in the genetic work being done. may i ask why? not saying it is not of great importance, but is it THE indicator? i am frankly pretty ignorant about most things like that, so i am cautious when reading about it.

[Gunter]

was the rowley article "Lophophora - species and cultivars"? I have to admit, that is one of the lophophora publications i tend to disagree with the most....not that i dont have a great deal of respect for the author, but i personally completely disagree with all lophophora being one species. but even that article has some points worth remembering.

I don't like the article much myself, but the photograph of the Habermann specimen is in there. Interestingly, the jourdaniana is said to come from a single specimen... and the seedling descendants are self sterile... Odd eh? Seedling descendants of a self sterile cactus...? At some point seeds arose... was another pollen source used to promote selfing? I wish I knew.

The flowers of diffusa... and the alkaloid profile... and the rib/tubercles all remind me of some Turbinicarpus.

i personally dont think it is a williamsii either....im not really sure what to call it, but im not sure about hybrids. possible, sure, but i am not near convinced just yet.

I feel pretty similar but am trying to look at a intermediates in this thread in a way that predisposes me to consider them here more than to consider subspecies that are products of divergent populations and alternative alleles.

 

are you referring to williamsii? you think it is an intermediate. that is an interesting thought, one i have never thought of before.

I wonder if it is, yes. I don't assume it is, but I do wonder, if it is, then would we be able to tell? I think that the answer is no. I also think that if it was, then there would be some issues in regard to genetic work, issues I believe are strongly evidenced by the genetic work. I have faith in data, not in how conclusions are based upon that data, so in regard to genetic work I believe it is of great use in generating data. I think the work being done shows that more work needs to be done, it shows that what we have assumed based upon floral formulas and phenotypes is close, but not fully accurate and in some cases surprisingly wrong.

correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems to me that you are putting great faith in the genetic work being done. may i ask why? not saying it is not of great importance, but is it THE indicator? i am frankly pretty ignorant about most things like that, so i am cautious when reading about it.

 

Genetic data shows degrees of relationship via methods of comparison, it is a continuation of the older methods of taxonomy, but using molecular traits instead of visual traits. I believe that it is of great value, and that it has many flaws. I hope that I have paid some degree of attention in this thread to the fact that I believe that the modern analysis methods have some specific flaws, including the inability to evidence a reticulated relationship. This being said, I have faith in the data, but in conclusions I do not, rather I will remain without conclusion while entertaining various possibilities while attempting to falsify them via data. I will have an opinion, but this will always be relative and subject to change as new information comes to light.

[kadakuda]

I wonder if it is, yes. I don't assume it is, but I do wonder, if it is, then would we be able to tell? I think that the answer is no. I also think that if it was, then there would be some issues in regard to genetic work, issues I believe are strongly evidenced by the genetic work. I have faith in data, not in how conclusions are based upon that data, so in regard to genetic work I believe it is of great use in generating data. I think the work being done shows that more work needs to be done, it shows that what we have assumed based upon floral formulas and phenotypes is close, but not fully accurate and in some cases surprisingly wrong.

completely agree.

lets do a little experiment for the hell of it.

now assuming you agree on the 4 species model (diffusa, fricii, koehresii and williamsii), which i strongly do, take a look at this.

so, anyone know what they are? i have posted them here before, so maybe....but how do you know?

[Gunter]

Honestly I don't have a clue without some consideration.

One of them, the last one, reminds me of what i would expect a diffusa X fricii to look like in terms of the flower. Now, at a glance that appears to be the same as the plant depicted just before it. I wonder though, does that plant have scaled ovaries as it seems to from my perspective? It could be the naked ovary is hidden by the wool.

I could see diffusa and fricii being two forms of one species, one of them being a sub-species. The koehresii could be a sub-species of the same species. The variegated plant kind of reminds me of koehresii...

The first two photographs I'd guess are the same plant and are some form of williamsii, at least that is what I would guess.

I find the 4 species model acceptable, but don't know how the plants are truly related. Nor do I know what species definition is being used for the model, being that taxonomy in cacti tends to be ill defined and whimsical for some reason.