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Determining a plant's provenance?

Hoping someone here perhaps has a contact they can direct me to.

One of my current obsessions is tracing the dissemination of a particular species of plant in the U.S. I have managed to uncover anecdotal evidence, but I'd love to be able to definitively prove it through genetics.

I have a hunch that the populations I'm interested in all stem from one source; in other words, I suspect they may all be progeny, many generations removed, of a plant that grew in one person's garden roughly 150 years ago. This is a plant that reproduces by seed.

I'd like to know two things: Are these current plants, from various locations, part of the same tribe, so to speak? And are these current plants related to the surviving plants in what I believe is the original location? Odd as it sounds, I think I have several populations that would have remained unadulterated by the genes of unrelated populations of the same species.

Does anyone know if there is any way to genetically test plants to determine this? I also wonder if a layperson could hire a genetic specialist to check this out, from plant material I'd supply.

If you could point me to a researcher in this field, maybe one who enjoys a detective quest as much as I do, I'd be grateful. Have had no luck with geneticists I came up with by googling.

Thanks for any leads, no matter how slim.
-Sally Roth


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