Re: Re: Non-Native Species

From: Tim Williams Ext. 5529 (tjw@chos001.cho.ge.com)
Date: Fri Jan 03 1997 - 06:31:47 PST


Date: Fri, 3 Jan 97 09:31:47 EST
From: tjw@chos001.cho.ge.com (Tim Williams Ext. 5529)
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg34$foo@default>
Subject: Re: Re: Non-Native Species

Dave Evans asks about dandylions:

Dandylions reproduce by apomixis, a process where the embryo arises from
an adjacent vegetative cell and not from the egg cell. Therefore the
seed is genetically identical to the mother plant.

Recent genetic evidence shows that the North American dandylions are
genetically distinct from those in Europe. This suggests that dandylions
are probably native to NA (and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere)
and not European imports.

This also holds for other common weeds originally thought to be European
imports. Prunella vulgaris comes to mind as another example.

Tim Williams
tim.williams@cho.ge.com



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