Tom,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070314-hybrids.html
My aurea x aurea crosses... what can I say. I'm keeping some of them a secret, but the genetics will be as pure as anyone could hope for. With that said, let me clarify my thinking where it concerns pure aurea or any pure species. To be absolutely certain there is no certainty. What I mean by this is that anyone studying population drift, etc. will soon run into debates as to how far back the differentiation resulted in phenotype that we can now call an independent species. More drift and hybridization becomes less and less frequent between the different species until isolation may or may not produce plants that are also incapable of breeding together under normal means of fertilization or simply from geographic isolation. If your following this and have studied a bit on the subject then you realize that whether you are a fundamental lumper or splitter it doesn't really matter... what matters is that you love one particular expression or version that you can see (phenotype), but you have to be honest and realize that even after seeing a seed pod or even seedlings that we are all as related to one another as each plant is to each other. What I mean by this is that our separation of species or groups is largely arbitrary. Take people and races of people for instance. Do you really think there is such a thing as a pure race? Not likely, we are after all all connected by land and there is no law natural or otherwise that says we can't find a mate with our neighbor 2 miles away and our children do the same and this has happened for as long as time has been. Geographic isolation, method of pollination, etc. It is all in the eyes of the beholder. Take statistics. Many try to use statistics to show that their hybrid is pure. If you cross B. aurea x B. versicolor you have a 50/50 mix of both sets of genetics if you concede that you believe each is pure. Now crossing B. aurea 50% x B versicolor 50% to a pure 100% aurea.... you have no assurance that the 50% from your first cross was not entirely from your B versicolor portion of your first cross. You can cross as many times as you wish and you can never be 100% sure! Now, how can you be sure your pure species was in fact a pure species and didn't carry a single chromosome from a B suaveolens? The answer is simple: You can't! With that said, I can put myself into different trains of thoughts where I can trick myself into believing one truth over another, but reality is still reality which to me has always been a bit blind at times. Another good reason to look at the traits you like and go after them. Hybrids like Kaitlyn can be classified as pure species aurea utilizing one approach to this thinking and in all honesty they are as potentially pure as any collected specimen from the wild that shows a clear phenotype of pure aurea. I like to argue as I hope in arguing one point or another that someone will point out the absurdity in my logic which by the way is how many of us think. In the end, I love those hybrids called pure aurea for many reasons. Fragrance, substance, growth, etc. all taken in and expressed in a unique form that to me... simply puts me in a place of being where I am content with simply being and then the wanting starts back up and I desire an improvement to the shape, substance, etc. I seek to magnify those traits that I find most abundant in the aurea species or at least what we have agreed to call the aurea species. Where does one species end and other begin? Who has the purest of the pure? We can only have an ideal that we seek to magnify in one form or another. Pure to another will simply mean a plant that can be crossed to another of similar appearance and give one less deviation from that norm.... enough said.
This message was edited Nov 26, 2008 2:31 PM
