View Single Post
Old 07-10-2006, 07:19 PM   #17 (permalink)
JoeReal
Senior Member
 
JoeReal's Avatar
 
Location: Davis, California USDA zone 9
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,034
BananaBucks : 407,644
Feedback: 1 / 100%
Said "Thanks" 108 Times
Was Thanked 474 Times in 228 Posts
Said "Welcome to Bananas" 16 Times
Default Re: Musa Dwarf Lady finger now in stock and on sale!

I can't blame anyone for the current chaos, plus that the less knowledgeable propagators often coming up with their own names and the marketing group thrown all into this melee.

One of the major sources of naming chaos is our perception of what constitutes a cultivar and the lack of international standards for naming of complex interspecific hybrids. In most cases, we have been at a loss when it comes to naming hybrids. Most bananas are hybrids, in fact almost all of the edible bananas are complex polyploid hybrids originating from the acuminata and balbisiana groups. But we are able to propagate these hybrids vegetatively and they would come true to type and thus somehow fit some rudimentary definition of a species but definitely distinct cultivars. How does one name them taxonomically these polyploid hybrids of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana? We have no problem with acuminata alone nor the balbisiana alone including their sport mutations but with complex hybrids, such as a hypothetical one that I concocted by hybridizing the regular acuminata primitive with an existing AB hybrid then backcrossing that with balbisiana type, shall we name them "Musa acuminata x (balbisiana x acuminata) x balbisiana 'Joe banana'"? If you are not sure about that, I can be sure that I will be able to propagate it vegetatively if I ever come up with it.


http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Musa.html


Amazingly, the same chaotic sientific naming of Citrus species has come to light also. Latest DNA analysis would show that all known citruses can be traced back to only about 3 species and in fact almost all of the commercially grown citruses are in fact hybrids of the three citrus species. One thing peculiar about citruses that has fooled our "taxonomic" forefathers is that most of them would come true to type when propagated by seeds, tricking our early growers that they are distinct species when in fact they are really hybrids. Most citruses have polyembryonic seeds with prodominantly nucellar embryos. The nucellar embryos are like a folded in cellular-tissues of the female parent that has reverted into its most juvenile form. Thus when you plant these, even if the citruses were pollinated by another, it would be hard to look for a hybrid, most likely you will get the true to type. Citruses as well as bananas can hybridize naturally, and some of these natural hybrids will outgrow the other embryos aand can then produce true to type hybrids in the wild, tricking our early taxonomic workers for separate species, thus we have chaotic naming as well. With genetic testing, it may help resolve these issues but I believe it will be more questions than answers, more chaos than order, until the scientific community knows how to deal with the proper naming of complex hybrids.

Todate we even have complex interspecific hybrids such pluots, peach cots, apriums, plum and cherry hybrids, what would be the proper scientific name for these when most often it is not a simple 50-50% genetic intermix and could span several species mix. I haven't ran any scientific articles discussing these complex hybrids as separate species. And we now have genetically engineered crops where we splice a gene from one organism to another and could end up in bananas.
JoeReal is offline   Reply With Quote Send A Private Message To JoeReal