>Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 15:17:53 +1200 >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > >>"The main point to make here: if we (taxonomists) are expected to >>take hybrids serious, we must be absolutely certain that >> >> > > > >>a) the hybrids are that what the hybridizers say it is >>b) the parents are documented >>c) material of the parents (pieces of leaves, root tips, illustrations of >>the plants (both vegetative and floral) etc. are put at our disposal. >>d) the hybrid lines are started new and are not based on old >>(therefore uncertain ) plants" >> >> > >When the first man-made orchid hybrids were produced in the 19th >Century, a taxonomist (was it Dr Lindley?) exclaimed: >"You will drive the botanists mad!" > >Now the taxonomists seem ready to drive the hybridisers mad! >Poetic justice maybe? :) > > No Nick, you have it wrong here. Taxonomists don't drive the hybridisers mad for a simple reason: The taxonomists did not do the hybridizing. And the hybridisers did not ever bother having taxonomists check on whether what they (the hybridisers) were doing was really was they (the hybridisers) were saying that they were doing. The reason why habridising of orchids started was that the big companies (who made fortunes from importing new species ... Veitch, Sander, etc) thought, that there would not be any more new species to be discovered. But that is another saga.
Anyway, it is the hybridisers who drive the hybridisers mad ... Taxonomists (at least this one) do not get driven mad (... yes I know ...) because all we say is ... "prove it" and if you can't ... we say "that is a dubious hybrid" ... just as simple as that. Now, the hybridisers get mad, and angry, because I say: "scrap" the whole mess ... but don't go turning things around (again) : it is not my mess ... not is it the taxonomists mess, its the hybridisers's mess. And if the hybridisers don't want to be told that they created a mess ... they should not have created the mess. Regards Guido Dr. Guido J. Braem ... a scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections ... a mere heart of stone." (Charles Darwin, 1857)
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