Dear Friends, This is an interesting discussion about Tamarind. The RAPD paper doesn't exactly answer about the origin of Tamarind. As a whole the sampling within India (Asia) and Madagascar is sparse. Even the title ends with a question mark. Moreover the authors say they could not find references paleontological evidence of Tamarind pollen in the tertiary (whereas other genera could be found) again mystifying the origin of Tamarind in Africa.
But based on the fact that Africa is the origin of most genera of the tribe (25 genera of Amherstieae (Tamarindus tribe), 23 are endemic to Africa and Madagascar :Polhill and Raven (1981)), it might be concluded that the genus originated in Africa. I could not find any recent well resolved molecular phylogeny of the group. In Bruneau et al., (2001), Tamarind is in the Amherstieae clade. The clade is also not well resolved probably do the lack of enough polymorphisms in the DNA sequence. So there is no clear evidence of the phylogenetic relatives of Tamarind. Prehistoric long distance dispersal into India/Asia by birds might also be not ruled out as a source of entry into India. A molecular study to find out the origin of our beloved Tamarind would be very interesting. Sid. On 29 July 2010 09:30, Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]> wrote: > I does'nt, whether you like it or not. I hope you know why and what people > write in abstract. > > > -- > Dr. Gurcharan Singh > Retired Associate Professor > SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007 > Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018. > Phone: 011-25518297 Mob: 9810359089 > http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ <http://people.du.ac.in/%7Esinghg45/> > > > On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 11:11 PM, Pankaj Kumar <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Thanks a lot for reading the aritcle..... >> >> Page no. 854, paragraph 3, line no. 18: Tamarindus is said to have >> some resemblance to Heterostemon Desf. from the upper Amazon region of >> South America. >> >> Page no. 857, paragrah 2, line no. 1: The high intra population >> variability from the populations of the presumed origins of T. Indica >> do not allow for confirmation of the geographical origin of the >> species between Africa, Madagascar and India, as the sampling was >> small in Asia and Madagascar. >> >> Hope that contradicts the information provided earlier. >> Regards >> Pankaj >> > > > >
