Re: Scientific names
Gabe, I agree with you there that the root cause of this naming chaos is that bananas do not fit the true definition of a genetic species but outwardly they behave like one. Of course, most edible bananas can be polyploids of one or several species and not necessarily polyploids of different species. If it is composed of polyploid of one species, it would still be easy to name them as the original species, like Musa acuminata. In the very near future, we could have other species incorporated into the ploidy level, aside from acuminata and balbisiana. My question was how to name the more complex of several species and have given various examples not limited to bananas. The complex hybrids occur in nature and the plants are here, living and behaving as they are, and we have not fitted the species definition to give these hybrids the proper scientific naming that would make more sense to our current genetic understanding. What shall we name the complex hybrids? For example in stone fruits, the intraspecific hybrid between plum and apricots are called pluots when more plum characteristics are present, while those with more apricot phenotype are called apriums. If they are equal mix, then they are simply called plumcots. But with bananas, we are dealing with polyploidy also, so it won't be that simple.
The same with citruses, although we have named and internationally accepted several dozen species, it turns out that by genetic testing, these all came from 3 distinct original species. Citron, pummelo, and sweet oranges (IIRC), and all the rest are hybrids. Grapefruits while similar in most ways to pummelos are actually hybrids of orange and pummelo. The reason why we have the same kind of naming trouble is that citruses even when they are complex hybrids even in natural environment, these can produce true to type from seeds, behaving in every way like a separate species, but genetic testing show otherwise. The result is a lot of disagreement on how to really name the current standard cultivars that are actually complex hybridsm, but that our forefathers have named and we all came to accept today.
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