Davidsonia

Editor, Iain Taylor writes about the importance of ecological preservation that takes private property rights into consideration, while meeting obligations to act for the greater, global common good.

Name changes in botany are frequent and are particularly troubling to horticulturists. Are they necessary and should they be tolerated?

UBCBG director Quentin Cronk writes about changes in taxonomy in the modern era of phylogenetic reconstruction using DNA sequencing.

The cultivated strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa, originated in the 18th century from a cross of a selection of F. chiloensis, from Chile, with a selection of F. virginiana, from Virginia. Since then other selections from each species have been used to breed improved cultivars. However, none of these contains genes of F. chiloensis native to British Columbia (BC). During the 1980s approximately two thousand selections of the species were collected from 123 sites in the Province. A selection from each site was evaluated for reactions to several important strawberry diseases or pests. A selection showing multiple resistances was crossed with ‘Totem’, the leading Pacific Northwest cultivar; subsequently a selection from this was crossed with ‘Elsanta’, the leading European cultivar. After two generations, there is at least one selection that approaches modern day cultivar standards and appears to have resistances approaching those of the F. chiloensis selection. This indicates the value of the collection which represents only a minuscule amount of the diversity of the native F. chiloensis of BC.

Approximately 1470 plants identified as Fragaria chiloensis from 123 sites throughout the coastal region of British Columbia have been grown at the Canadian Clonal Genebank in Smithfield, Ontario. Following cultivation for 3 years in a uniform garden the plants were identified on the basis of traditional subjective determination of leaf thickness, and other taxonomic characters were noted. Plants with leaves intermediate between F. chiloensis subsp. pacifica and F. virginiana subsp. glauca, referable to F. × ananassa nothosubsp. cuneifolia, occurred throughout the coastal region, but were particularly prevalent on the east and south sides of Vancouver Island. Plants with intermediate leaf thickness as well as other intermediate characteristics originated only from this latter region which corresponds to the Georgia-Puget Basin Ecoregion of the Pacific Maritime Ecozone. Plants referable to F. chiloensis subsp. pacifica with either thick leaves, or less thick leaves transitional toward the hybrid, originated from throughout much of the coastal region, with the notable exception of the central east and south sides of Vancouver Island, where the most distinct hybrids originated. Contrary to the viewpoint in many current texts, three taxa of Fragaria exist on the Pacific coast. Furthermore, many plants previously referred to F. chiloensis, may be better placed with F. × ananassa nothosubsp. cuneifolia or introgressants which appear to be frequent.

The January installment of Judy Newton's popular series describing what to see at the UBC Botanical Garden each month of the year.

A table of climatological records at the University of British Columbia campus for October, November and December 2002.