I like to read stuff about the scientific angle of plant taxonomy and classification, even though I am not a botanist. I just like to know stuff I guess.
Recently the question came up about the parentage of Philodendron 'Dark Lord'. (it has been discussed before on other forums than this site, by the person who named it and by others asking about it). It is also referenced in the 'Words of Wisdom' thread here on this forum.
In a previous discussion (not here), it was mentioned that DNA testing had been attempted on a group of Philodendrons for a scientific paper published in the "Journal of the American Society of Horticultural Science" in 2004 (Devanand, Chen, Henny, Chao).
Having been undertaken in c2004, this data is, of course, outdated now. But it never the less shows some interesting insights into the genetic interrelationships of some of the plants we have come to know and love.
Salient points:
**The genus Philodendron has more than 700 identified species
**All species of Philodendron have open-pollinated unisexual flowers and are native to tropical America
** morphological differences are many. There is wide variation in growth habit (climbing, arborescent, etc) leaf size varies from small to gigantic, leaf shape is extremely variable, and there are also many color variations in leaves.
For these reasons, Philodendrons have at times dominated the ornamental foliage plants sold in the USA, ranging at times from 35-50% of the total plant market.
The first HYBRID philodendron was developed in 1887 in Italy. The first USA hybrid was done in 1936 and was a cross between P. hastatum (aka P. domesticum) x P. erubescens.
For the 2004 study, 43 cultivars plants and 5 control plants were selected. In some cases, the samples were duplicates of the same plant, but obtained from different SOURCES.
....continued in Part 2, DNA Testing
