Re: your mail

Bob Beer (bbeer@u.washington.edu)
Fri, 1 Oct 1993 08:23:23 -0700 (PDT)

> Ah, but the big problem with division as a conservation measure is
> that you loose the gene pool. As Barry pointed out earlier, plants
> grown in cultivation will be artificially "selected" for genes that
> allow the species to live in cultivation. So even propagating plants
> by seed in cultivation can not protect the gene pool (unless the
> plants are cultivated "outdoors" in a habitat similar to the one they
> came from), and a good sample size is needed.

I should have said "genetic diversity." In other words, there is one
more clone around the area than there was before. So what is the point -
the plants should be left there? Of course, dividing a plant spreads
only one clone, but now there are more people with one more thing to
fertilize their other S. oreophilas with.