Yellow Flowered Pinguicula.

From: PTemple001@aol.com
Date: Wed Apr 23 1997 - 12:44:18 PDT


Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:44:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: PTemple001@aol.com
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1621$foo@default>
Subject: Yellow Flowered Pinguicula.

Jan (and Bob)

In addition to Bob's P. pumila (Hi Bob!), there is yet another yellow
flowered Ping. It's P. filifolia. As you know, the Type is not yellow
flowered but I know of a colony that is yellow flowered, no plants in the
colony having flowers of another colour. Oh yes, this is not based on a
report - I've seen it myself.

I reported this (in this electronic CP newsletter) almost two years ago when
I wrote my visit report following my first excursion to Cuba. It was one of
the discoveries that I ranked as of lower importance compared to other things
I saw (like P. jackii, Microcycas, etc.) - but I still think it is an
exciting discovery. At the time, I stated that to my knowledge no-one had
ever published the existence of this colour flower for this species. No one
responded to my report of this colour break. Perhaps it escaped the
attention of the readers, in amoungst my descriptions of other events.

I hesitate to predict this is a new form, variety or subspecies as I'd hate
to fall victim to the moranensis disease of giving a new name to every minor
variation of a species. But in this case, it may be a likely candidate as
the flower colour break is geographically isolated from the populations I
know of with normally coloured flowers. What I do not know is whether there
are other nearby populations of mixed flower colour. This needs me to
investigate in a future year (maybe 1999 or later). (Oh dear, another reason
for me to have to go back to Cuba. How unfortunate. The sun. The rum. The
Salsa. The chicas. It's a tough old life!)

I know how fastidious you are (Jan) about plant names (thank goodness you
are!) so I've no idea if you would consider flower colour is sufficient to
deserve it's own taxa (maybe a Form?) in such a geographically isolated case
as this.

Regards

Paul



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