ISHS Acta Horticulturae 283: IV International Symposium on Plum and Prune Genetics, Breeding and Pomology
STUDIES OF SOME SPECIES OF PRUNUS MILL. GENUS |
| Author: | E.I. BAJASHVILI |
| Abstract:
This paper presents the results of intraspecific research into the genus Prunus. The view is advanced that the cultivated plum (P.domestica) may have originated not only by hybridization between myrobalan x sloe, but in other ways too - directly from hexaploid P. divaricata or from P. spinosa (alloploidization). A number of authors (DARWIN, 1865; CRANE and LAWRENCE, 1933; VAVILOV, 1931; ZHUKOVSKI, 1960; RYBIN, 1935, 1936), connect the origin of cultivated plum with the Caucasus. It is exactly in the Caucasus that according to Crane and Lawrence's hypothesis, the two species that gave rise to that hexaploid plum, show a great variety of forms. It is natural to assume that here we have all conditions for crossing sloe (P. spinosa) and myrobalan (P. cerasifera) and subsequent emergence of hexaploid hybrids. Hence the Caucasus is considered to be one of the seats of hexaploid plums (RYBIN, 1935). VAVILOV (1931) wrote that Georgia is a big laboratory where an intensive process of the creation of new species is under way. Indeed, some species of Prunus create such a great variety of forms that they might be well described as species or subspecies. Now one can imagine how important is a close and detailed research of intraspecies peculiarities of their wild ancestors myrobalan and sloe. Studies in this direction in the Caucasus were started by All Union Institute for Plants in the 1930s. As a result of these studies, RYBIN (1935) wrote that neither P. insititia nor P. domestica were found in its wild form in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. So 48-chromosomes forms of Prunus have generally not been revealed (Flora of the USSR, 1939). According to some authors (FALK, 1768; MARSCHALL-BIEBERSTEIN, 1808; LEDEBOUR, 1844) P. domestica and P. insititia grow in the Caucasus, but due to more substancial research conducted by others (ALBOV, 1895, AKINFIEV, 1899; VORONOV, 1925) only P. divaricata is widely spread here, whereas no mention of P. domestica and P. insititia has been made. Indeed as the Caucasus is believed to be | |
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