Monocarpic---a valid term for bulbs ???

[gote]

No Gerry,
I am not clever enough to understand your use of the word ‘form’. To me, (a b—dy foreigner) the form is what in computer language is called ‘frame’ or ‘protocol’. The form of a Sonnet is to me the rules that make it one; such as that there shall be fourteen lines, a specified number and kind of metrical feet and rules about rhymes.
Opposed to the form is the content – the meaning of the message, the data sent in the frame, the feeling conveyed to the reader of the sonnet.

To me it looks as you object to the content not the form – thus I do not understand.

I did not say that you claimed that that a “common genome necessarily makes several physically distinct entities into a single individual”. I merely tried to shape up the form of my previous reference to twins. Something I did because of your objection to the form.

I agree that the meaning of a word depends upon the context. Thus I did not say that “a reference to Siamese twins proves that the statement about Carlton is rubbish”. I used the word “Not necessarily” which is a much weaker statement and allows that sometimes perhaps the inference from the genome could be drawn.
 
Probably I made a mistake about the form I was using – believing it to be clearer – especially since I previously referenced to Bertrand Russel who made such skillful use of this type of sentence in the preface to his skeptical essays – no doubt influenced by mathematical logic reasoning where there is a big difference between say: AN upper limit and THE upper limit.
Göte
PS
Is this a gardening forum or a philosophy forum?


   

[gote]

Yes Jim.
de Candolle speaks about death. So do I. Of the death of the main original plant. The point is that de Candolle most probably knew that a part of the Agave plant was likely to live somewhere else since Agave plants send out runners. Thus you have not proven your sub-thesis. (Which seems to be that one of the most important botanists of the time did not know what he was saying) To do that you must at least prove that de Candolle believed that any and all rooted offsets would die with the plant.
By the way, have you ever grown a Cardiocrinum to maturity??
Göte

[Tony Willis]

Is this a gardening forum or a philosophy forum?

This is an interesting thread which I find is better read every few days as the posts mount up which then gives some continuity. It would be even better to have the protagonists  on a stage opposite each other and to be able to listen to the arguments in the flesh.

[Maggi Young]

Göte wrote....
PS
Is this a gardening forum or a philosophy forum?

Göte, I fervently hope this forum is all things to all men..... " the answer to life the universe and everything" as the late Douglas Adams wrote   (in "the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" )...... it is a rare  treat to find a place of such diversity, is it not ?

[gote]

I am glad someone is interested Tony but it would not make sense on a stage. Not if we have to stop arguing in order to find and read french books from the first part of the 19th century.
Göte

[Jim McKenney]

Yes Jim.
de Candolle speaks about death. So do I. Of the death of the main original plant. The point is that de Candolle most probably knew that a part of the Agave plant was likely to live somewhere else since Agave plants send out runners. Thus you have not proven your sub-thesis. (Which seems to be that one of the most important botanists of the time did not know what he was saying) To do that you must at least prove that de Candolle believed that any and all rooted offsets would die with the plant.
By the way, have you ever grown a Cardiocrinum to maturity??
Göte

Dear Göte, let's take things one at a time. If I seem not to have proved my sub-thesis (as you phrase it), perhaps that is because I prefer to concentrate on the main thesis for now. This highly entertaining discourse has wandered in a multitude of directions; I'm surprised no one has asked us to provide a site map!

Let's agree that we don't know precisely what de Candolle did or did not know. I would say that on the basis of the one passage I read, he seems to have believed that the plant (the entire plant) died. But of course that is only one brief passage: as the rest of us do, de Candolle might have been shaping his meanings for that particular context. He was trying to make a point.

Yes, I have grown Cardiocrinum. I grow C. cordatum. From one original bulb I have seen this plant bloom three times in my garden (in the years 2000, 2004 and again this year).

It is not necessary to resolve your concerns about the meaning of the words individual or individuum in order to make my point because, as anyone who has grown these plants and followed their development will attest, what eventually become individual plants in your sense are in an earlier stage of development part of what is indisputably one plant.  

In other words, if you were to watch the development of the plant without its covering of soil, you would see that as this year's plant is blooming, the buds which will become the plants of the future are already there, an indivisible part of the mass of the one plant.

Surely even you will concede that as long as these buds are firmly attached to the basal plate - the same basal plate to which the blooming stem is attached - then they and the blooming stem are part of ONE plant in any reasonable meaning of those words. That such buds might in the future become separated and grow independently is irrelevant at this stage of the process.

Göte, you used the expression "main, original plant". By "main" I suppose you mean the most vigorous, conspicuous part of the assemblage. But what do you mean by "original"? For instance, with my Cardiocrinum, there is obviously a "main" plant, but I know from years of experience that what I see as the main plant is in fact only the current manifestation of such. In my own garden there have been already three such main plants, one succeeding the other over the years. Furthermore, I have no idea how many such "main plants" might have existed before the plant arrived in my garden. My plant might be a few decades old, it might be centuries old: there is no way to know.

All that can be said with certainty is that at sometime in the past a single, individual seed germinated into a plant of Cardiocrinum cordatum. Everything I have, whether conted as one plant or multiple plants,  derives from that one seed. To my way of thinking that makes them all one plant, even if I chop them up and spread them around. I can destroy the physical connection, but I cannot change the fact that they are all derived from one seed, that they are all pieces of one original plant.

In this discussion we have failed to maintain a rigorous distinction between sexual reproduction and vegetative reproduction. Sexual reproduction results in the production of new individuals, their newness expresses as a unique genome. Vegetative reproduction results in the dispersal of an existing genome into separate, independently living entities.    

We have also failed to give due consideration to the difference between organisms such as plants made up primarily of totipotent cells (which in plants allows pieces of one individual to be broken into numerous self sufficient entities) and organisms such as humans whose mature cells are not totipotent (which circumstance causes pieces of such organisms to die when they are removed under most circumstances).

Let's also agree that this word individual is context sensitive and in some contexts its meaning is context specific. In discussions of human identity we use this word individual in sense very different to the sense I used in the paragraph above about sexual and vegetative reproduction. I think most people would agree that our individuality as humans, although no doubt influenced by our genome, is something greater than that. Monozygotic twins are known to have much in common, and that is what you would expect from their origin as one entity split into two. But the common term "identical twins" is a misnomer: they are not identical individuals. Wouldn't you agree that our individuality is the product not only of our genetic makeup but also of everything we have experienced in life?

If monocarpic is to mean that only the main sprout dies, why are tulips, fritillaries and lilies not considered monocarpic? The main sprout in these plants always dies after setting seed.  

[Jim McKenney]

And here's something I should have included in the previous post: The word individual has been used in this thread in application to the pieces which result when one plant is divided. Perhaps that is not the proper word to use. The etymology of the word individual suggests that whatever it means in common speech now, it’s original meaning meant “indivisible”. Thus to my way of thinking, to the extent to which  plants are freely divisible, the word individual is not properly applicable to them.

[gote]

I agree that without further research, we cannot be absolutely certain what de Candolle knew or did not know. I repeat, however, that I find it extremely unlikely that he would not know that Agave proliferates by runners.

I also repeat that:  If a group of people use a word in a special meaning, this is the meaning of the word within that group. This meaning cannot be falsified if the group is knowledgeable about the circumstances that word describes and I claim that botanists including de Candolle know that Agave sends out runners.   

I agree that “identical twins” is a misnomer. The Swedish word is “one-egg-twins” but I assume that I have to stick to English here. I agree that they are not identical in the mathematical meaning of the word. Indeed I assumed this to be the accepted view and thus used them as an example on that homozygotism does not prevent individuality and thus the offsets can be considered separate entities. Are you not arguing against yourself?

In a bulb of a Lilium, the basal plate is intact and entire year after year. Even in the first stages of splitting the basal plate is entire.
As far as I understand. (Now is not a good time to dig up a Cardiocrinum in my climate) the basal plate of a Cardiocrinum disintegrates when the plant is past flowering.

The difference seems to be that the flowering stalks in truly perennial Liliaceae, (sensu lato) the flowering stem does not come from the apical bud. This can often be clearly observed, also without dissecting the bulb, if a lily bulb is lifted at the flowering stage. Thus the stem (basal plate) lives happily on, spending side buds on sexual reproduction. This is very obvious in say Trillium where the stem is not shortened to a basal plate.
You write that “The main sprout in these plants always dies” This is beside the (growing  ) point. The sprout in these plants is not the main stem which it is in an Agave or Cardiocrinum.

 In those species that I call monocarp, the flowering stem comes from the apical bud which causes those parts of the stem, that are not already separated enough to become self sufficient entities, to die. The basal plate of the Cardiocrium or Notholirion is such a stem.

Some botanists consider Cardiocrinum to be more primitive than Lilium. The ability to flower from side buds rather than from the apical bud would fit into that idea since it improves the rate of survival. 

This difference in flowering habit can also be seen in dicots. An Echeveria flowers from side buds and the main rosette grows on forever whereas a superficially similar Sempervivum flowers from the apical bud and the rosette dies.

By “original plant” I mean the plant I bought, was given or nursed from seed or or.... As opposed to those cuttings, runners or offsets that develop from it.

Göte   

[Jim McKenney]

Göte, I think I detect a pattern in the way you are presenting some of your ideas. Let’s examine that pattern and discuss its effect on the conduct of this discussion.

I understand the basic argument you are making about the nature of definitions: yes, a definition cannot be falsified. I’m assuming that you mean that in the same way it is said that analytic a priori statements cannot be falsified. Definitions, in that sense, do not say anything about the real world. They do not assert the existence of anything; they simply spell out a relationship. They do not even assert the existence of the elements of the relationship they spell out. But it seems to me that there is an aspect of definitions which you are not taking into account. To be truly meaningful and useful, don’t they have to agree with what is happening in the real world? Such might not be definitions in the philosophical sense, but they are definitions in the everyday sense.
And then there is this: your definitions project a snap-shot, momentary view of the world. They overlook the fact that in the real world there will be underlying processes at work. However secure they are in their momentary certainty, these definitions overlook the overarching processes which can make the definitions irrelevant.
Let’s apply this to your example of the way words have meanings within subsets of the greater population. As long as the subsets in question pursue their activities separately, there is no cause for concern. But in the real world, as knowledge expands, bridges between formerly discrete disciplines develop. Territory formerly considered the preserve of one subset comes to be occupied by two. When this happens, something has to give. Both camps might quarrel indefinitely about who is right, or a consensus might emerge with a definition which is a hybrid of the former definitions, or some members of either subset might chose to ignore those who disagree with them and continue on in their own world.
Let me give you a real world example, one taking place right now. There is a word which has not appeared in this thread yet, a word whose meaning touches on much of what we have been discussing. That word is clone. Its appearance in English is generally attributed to Herbert J. Webber of the plant Breeding Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture (here in the US). Although I’ve known the citation to Webber for years, until a few hours ago I have never had his paper in my hands in order to subject it to autopsy. As it turns out, Webber himself is not the source of the term clone (or as it appears in his paper, clon). The word appeared first in a publication by Webber, but Webber himself points out that it was a coworker, a Mr. O.F. Cook,  who called his attention to the suitability of the Greek word κλων.
Webber had earlier proposed the word strace (strain + race) for the same concept, and had submitted it to a review committee. But when he became aware of clon, he withdrew that proposal and went with Cook’s clon. In his paper, Webber reminds readers that clon is pronounced with a long o; later the spelling was revised to the form we now use, clone, to make that reminder unnecessary.
Webber’s definition of clon, the holotype so-to-speak for the word clone, is worth reading: I’ve attached it as an image below. This appears in Science II 18 501-503 from 1903. One reason I was slow in responding this time is that it took time to get a copy of this paper today. Thanks to the cooperation of a local librarian and the librarians at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, three hours after making a request I had the papers in my hand. This cooperation saved me several hours of driving. 
Take a considered look at Weber's definition. It’s notable for at least one thing is says and equally notable for something it does not say. The thing said and the thing left unsaid are both at variance with the contemporary meaning of clone as used by the majority of users.
The thing said which is remarkable is the phrase “Clons, which are groups of plants…”(bold and italics mine). This is in contrast to the usual contemporary usage where clone is used to refer to the elements which make up a clone in Webber’s sense.

The thing left unsaid which is remarkable is this: later re-workings of the clone concept  shifted the emphasis in meaning from the nature of the origin of the elements which make up a clone (i.e. vegetative propagation from what Webber calls “the same individual seedling”) to the supposed fact that such elements are identical. Nowhere does Webber allude to this supposed property of being identical.

Perhaps the reason he did not mention this is because his experience told him what observant gardeners had known for centuries: the elements which make up a clone are, contrary to that early and still persistent assumption, not necessarily identical. As an example, at the time Webber was writing, most of the early double tulips were said (or rather would come to be said as the concepts developed – at that time they were called “sports” in the English-speaking world)  to be somatic mutations of one variety, ‘Murillo’. They all originated from one individual seedling and in Webber’s sense formed a clone.

Webber’s concept and the contemporary concept of clone are in some ways potentially mutually contradictory. The tulips of the ‘Murillo’ group do not fit the modern definition because they are not all alike: in fact, their commercial success derives from the fact that the various named varieties all have different colors.

The incidence of these somatic mutations seems to be proportional to the number of replications in question.   

The modern concept of clone is a metonym of the original concept. Webber defined it as the group which resulted from the vegetative propagation of one seedling. In modern parlance it refers to the individual which is identical to something else. A clone in Webber’s sense is said, in modern parlance, to be made up of clones. In contemporary street-English it refers to someone who is so lacking in imagination that they copy the dress, speech or other characteristics of another person. In my opinion, the majority of persons who now use the word are clones (in the modern street sense)  because rather than trying to understand Webber’s definition, they follow the definition of the crowd!

Göte, what side shall we take in this dilemma? I told this long story because to me it is a good example of what happens in the real world. There are those of us who still cling to Webber’s concept, but we are evidently the minority. For the idea conveyed by the modern concept of clone (i.e. something identical to the thing it is derived from)  I use the term tautad (from the Greek combining form taut- , same, and the suffix –ad indicating a group).

Those of us who cling to Webber’s original concept are now in competition with those who use the metonym. I have no illusions about the way this is going: this horse has been out of the barn so long that we’ll never get it back in.


This unfortunate turn of events happened because “Authorities” in horticulture, who originated the word, were not in sufficiently close contact with “Authorities” in other fields. For nearly a full century there seems to have been little cross-communication, perhaps because the eventual usurpers of the world, vertebrate zoologists, had little interest in clones until very recently. Dolly changed that, didn’t she! There is every reason to believe that cloning of humans has been happening throughout our evolutionary history: but that is the natural cloning which results in monozygotic twins.  The cloning of vertebrates outside the maternal womb is now a hot research area and will no doubt ensure the employment of many medical ethicists. Is it time to retire the original concept of clone for good? 

If I persist in using Webber’s concept (and as a gardener it fits my needs very well – and furthermore, why should I change for the Johnny-come-lately sorts), am I guilty of using the snap-shot, momentary sort of definition I alluded to at the beginning of this long piece?

I’m not done here. This piece is already much too long. But there is a lot more to be said – tomorrow maybe.

[gote]

Dear Jim,

You have brought in a number of topics like the variability of Murillo Tulips, the etymology of the word ‘individual’ and the cellular specialisation of mammals, You have even introduced Greek letters which after passing through the net come out unreadable on my screen.

However interesting these topics may be, they have little relevance for the question in hand and only serve to confuse the issues. If I do not make a serious attempt to stick to the subject I might soon be debating the colour of the pope’s beard and the song the sirens sang.

The original disagreement was that I used the word monocarp for Notholirion.
You claimed that this be wrong since offsets with the same genome may come up next year.
It is clear from my original post that I do not believe that the genome in Notholirion necessarily dies after flowering.

The word monocarp to me means that the main manifestation of the genome in he shape of a stem, rhizome or basal plate dies after flowering because the flowers develop from the apical bud of this manifestation of the genome. In the case of annuals, there are no secondary surviving manifestations of the genome. Thus the genome dies with the manifestation. In Notholirion, there are sometimes secondary manifestations arising from lateral buds and thus the genome can survive. The same is even more true for Cardiocrinum and Agave.

In everyday talk, People – including myself – do not say “Primary-manifestation-of-the-genome-in-the-shape-of-a-stem-rhizome-or-basal-plate.” We do not even say PMOGITSOASROBP That would be pompous – using your vocabulary. We say ‘Plant’. Most of us live happily with the ambiguity of this word  (which even can mean a manufacturing facillity) and that is the word used in dictionaries trying to define the M-word. Thus ’plant’ is the word I will use hereunder. Likewise I will not say Secondary-manifestations-of the-genome-arising-from-lateral-buds-on-the-primary-manifestation-which-are-able-to-live-separated. I will say offsets.
The genome of the aggregate of plant and offsets I will call the genome.

You are using a different definition of the M-word. You say that the particle ‘mono’ refers to the genome, not to the plant. I think that you have not given sufficient justification for that opinion. I think that the M-word reasonably well describes what happens. The main manifestation indeed only flowers once.

You have suggested that my definition turns Lilium into monocarps. I have explained to you that the difference seems to lie in that the inflorescence comes from a lateral bud in Lilium and from the apical bud in Cardiocrinum. Thus the basal plate of a Lilium is not damaged by the flowering. (It is also very obvious to the casual observer that there is a fundamental difference between the two. Lilium flowers every year whereas Cardiocrinum flowers every 3rd to 7th year.) I think that you should consider and comment upon that difference rather than dragging in the reasons for variability within the murillos.

Passim I note that the offsets never seem to come before the apical bud turns into an inflorescence. I should believe that there is a suppression mechanism of lateral buds that is similar to the one in Trillium.

De Candolle did probably not know Notholirion or Cardiocrinum. Nor is he likely to have used the word genome. Agave americana was, however, a well known ornamental so by including Agave among the monocarps, he showed that his definition was in fact, even if not in words, similar to mine. You have tried to avoid this argument by casting doubts on de Candolle’s knowledge in his own field of expertise.

I have claimed that the consensus among the experts seems to be to use the word the way de Candolle and I do. Your answer to that has not been to show that the consensus supports your opinion. Instead you have also here claimed that the experts are wrong in their own field.

Agave americana  was mentioned by Charles de L'Ecluse in 1576 who sent offsets to his friend Coudebeq, an apothecary in Antwerp. L'Ecluse = Clusius was appointed as the first director of the Leiden Botanical Gardens in Holland in 1590. You will have a hard time proving ignorance among botanists.

In my opinion there is no inherent logic in the word ‘mono’ that makes it refer to a genome rather than to a plant. Common usage of the word ‘monocarp’ indicates that in that word, the particle ‘mono’ refers to the plant not to the genome.  In annuals your definition of the M-word is identical with mine but we rarely call annuals monocarps and that is a further support for my view.

If you are interested in inherent logic in words, let me point out that the manufacturers of Volvo were deliberately using a Latin word they knew well. Fortunately only the wheels roll; not the entire car. Should we tell Ford that they bought a car manufacturer under a mistaken brand name?

Should we strictly forbid any “float” in the meaning of original words when we make new by combination, then the M-word could only apply to plants within the monogynia in the Linnean sense of the word.

I wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year. May your Monocarps flower repeatedly!

All the best
Göte

[ashley]

This (reply #54) gets my vote for Post of the Year, and the thread isn't bad either!

Christmas Greetings to all, and special thanks to you Göte and Jim.

[Maggi Young]

Ashley,
 I am sure your Seasonal Greetings are appreciated by all.


 I will now bring this thread to a close......