North American Asters - so tough to ID

[Andrea B.]

Seriously, when it gets down to matters of polyploidy to distinguish clades,

well, then, I am probably not going to get my Symphyotrichum properly identified.

 

I was doing fairly well with examining the involucres for their turbinate vs. campanulate form,

and looking to see whether bracts were spreading, recurved or whatnot.

And I even got the hang of checking the chlorophyllum mark.

 

But no real Aster seems to obey the field marks.

So it prolly comes down to DNA to be sure.

 

Sigh !!

[nfoto]

Welcome to the weird word of modern taxonomy, Andrea. My impression is they get it right 1 in 5 times and makes a mess of the remainder.

 

Linnaean species are so yesterday. But oh so more easy to deal with.

[DaveO]

And you should see some of the arguments about Australian species! It all makes my head spin as a mere chemist

 

Now a more serious comment. If I take an image of an Australian native wildflower that was grown (by my green fingered wife, not by my clumsy digits) which has not been "improved" in any way but is essentially the same as one growing in the bush, can I place it into the Wildflower folder. I understand the difference with ones which have been selected and given names such as "Summer time blue" which obviously belong in the cultivar folder. Most eremophilas for example are collected in the bush (with the correct permissions of course) and grown by cuttings (aka slips I believe) and many crosses in cultivation arose naturally in the bush.

 

There is a strong movement here to bring native wildflowers into the garden, see www.anpsa.org.au to which Sue belongs of course. I raised the question of UV images in a recent eremophila study group newsletter but got no bites in reply, so I will continue in my blissful ignorance that it is all virgin territory.

 

Got my SB-14 on Tuesday :D

 

Dave

[Andrea B.]

Dave, yes, you certainly may place those home-grown wildflowers in the appropriate wildflower section.

I have posted many such examples myself.

 

Instead of designating such a deliberately grown flower as "wildflower",

I label them either

• "wildflower as garden specimen" if I grew the flower, or
  
• "wildflower as botanical garden specimen" if it grows in a public botanical garden.
  

So create some appropriate phrasing like that (or use that if you like it) and all will be well.

 

I put flowers developed for and sold in the commercial plant nurseries into the Cultivars section -

as well as flowers purchased at the florist or at the grocery store

or flowers grown as a "named" and labeled specimen in any public garden.

[nfoto]

The main difference between "wildflower" and "cultivar" is the latter more than likely has been breed and fine-tuned to get a desirable quality, as seen from the gardener's point of view. You could say he or she has tried to circumvent natural selection. Nature does not work that way as evolution is just an everlasting natural selection process.

 

To make it even easier: if you have paid for the specimen it belongs to the UV Cultivar section ....