Re: Re: Iris pallida & plicata

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Chuck,

I think we are talking semantics, and something akin to two sides of the same coin.  I see you as looking for scientific precision, and me looking at the likelihood or at least possibility that these plants (at least some of them) are a pure species.  You cannot use them without some assurance that they really are what they are purported to be.  I am taking on some faith that they probably are.  However, neither one of us is saying that they definitely are without proof.

 

I don't think we are looking at I. pallida as different things at all.  I am a botanist and study wild populations of plants.  To me cultivars are nothing more than the results of selection and recombinations of genes found in wild populations, and I don't consider a group of cultivars as a species at all, unless of course they are indeed still purely made up of the wild species.  There is potential for a group of cultivars to become a separate and new species, but that is a whole other topic.  When I am saying I think these are I. pallida, I mean the pure species I. pallida as it occurs in the wild, with no other species involved.  To me, an I. pallida crossed with an I. pallida, whether in habitat, or in a garden, is still an I pallida.  I am saying that I believe that some (if not most) of the I. pallida type plicatas in cultivation are indeed derived from the wild type of I. pallida, with no intermixing of other species. 

 

Now the big "however"; this is purely a belief with no proof on my part.  I could well be wrong in this premise, and am the first to admit it.  The only way to be sure would be to find a wild I. pallida that is a plicata.  The lack of such a plant doesn't prove anything, but the results of your ideas and work could show strong evidence pointing the other direction.  Thinking about what you are doing, and if I were in your position, I would hold out for the documented wild collected example too, and I agree with you on that.  There are lots of ifs though.  I still personally believe the plicata gene, at least in the form expressed in these "garden pallidas" most likely came from I. pallida (your efforts might prove me wrong, or at least prove an alternative or additional related possibility).  However (sort of arguing against myself to a degree on this one), even should a wild I. pallida plicata be found, or even a whole population of them, it still does not prove that the pattern did not ultimately derive from I. variegata just as you suspect, since gene exchange between wild species is quite possible (and in the grand scale of things is relatively common).  In a sense, if this is true, we would both be correct.  If such events of exchange (hybridization with backcrossing and eventual incorporation into the parent population) are infrequent, genes can be incorporated from species A into species B without noticeably blurring the lines between the two, while adding to the genetic variability of species B.  (not unlike what you described as a possibility in pallida-like cultivated plants)  If the events of exchange are frequent, then the result would eventually be the blending of the two parents into one population (sort of similar to what has happened with TB's, and other groups, but in a natural setting with a lack of human selection).  This "genetic drift" is relatively common, and could easily account for plicata genes in I. pallida, as could hybridization and backcrossing in the garden.  However, it seems equally possible that both I. pallida and I. variegata have expressions of related genes that both can express plicata like patterns, perhaps derived from a common ancestry, perhaps not. 

 

I am not nearly as well versed in the genetics of Iris patterns as you, so I would not presume to try to offer alternate possibilities as fact.  I'm sure I'm probably not telling you anything new here either.  It just seems to me that the evidence is good that the plicata pattern did (and likely still does) occur as a rare part of wild I. pallida populations.  However, the absence of proof does not answer the question one way or the other; it is just a belief, and not real until it is actually proven one way or the other.  Your work would definitely be evidence to shed some light on the question.

 

I will be one of many who will be watching for your results with great interest.

 

Dave