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  [Aroid-l] Alocasia zebrina reticulata
From: lbmkjm at yahoo.com (brian lee) on 2008.07.14 at 18:45:49(18146)
Dear Pete,

Aloha.

What a shame. What will happen when there are no field botanists with the knowledge to recognize species in habitat? I have taken young molecular taxonomists into the field and some of them really have no clue what they are looking at until you tell them. At this rate, there will come a time when no field botanists will be able to lead them to their samples...which they send off to distant labs to analyze the relationships.

The other problematic issue I see is that whole genomes are not analyzed, only sections that are not necessarily associated with known characteristics. I see a great need for traditional botany...but the lure of molecular biology is hooking most of the young fish these days. One day I see entire genomes of all plants being sequenced...which is a good thing in the long run. There will always be a great need for morphologists in the field, however...in my humble opinion...until all the plants are located on GPS and barcoded and linked to the great databases they envision. Who will control this information?

In the meantime,I hope the horticulturists out there report their observations. Unfortunately, most of these plants are not associated with good locality data... It will serve as a survey of variation,however.

Aloha,

Leland

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