Abstract
As with many other ornamental and cultivated plants that have been under human selection and cultivation for a long time, it has been a major challenge to trace back the complex evolutionary history of flowering cherry, Prunus yedoensis. This challenge has been further amplified by great morphological similarities, little molecular divergence, frequent natural and artificial hybridization, and poor documentation of breeding history among cultivated and wild flowering cherries. The origin and taxonomic distinction between wild P. yedoensis from Jeju Island, Korea, and one of the most popular cultivated flowering cherries, P. × yedoensis “Somei-yoshino” has been a controversy for the past few decades. We sampled many areas extensively, and using four different molecular markers we provided evidence for their independent origin. Wild P. yedoensis in Korea originated from multiple bidirectional hybridization events between two sympatric species, P. spachiana f. ascendens as the maternal species and P. serrulata var. spontanea/P. serrulata var. quelpaertensis as the most probable paternal species. On the contrary, our results supported a single artificial hybrid origin of P. × yedoensis “Somei-yoshino” from cultivated P. spachiana f. ascendens as the maternal species and P. speciosa, a species endemic to Izu Islands, as the paternal species. Based on extensive sampling, we provided strong evidence that wild and cultivated P. yedoensis are distinct taxonomic entities that have originated from different evolutionary processes. A potential for the development of new cultivars from wild P. yedoensis and conservation of diverse germplasms in situ insular setting and ex situ should be explored in the future.
Highlights
The genus Prunus L., belonging to the family Rosaceae, subfamily Amygdaloideae, includes approximately 250 species of shrubs and trees, which are most abundantly distributed in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, and about 75 species are distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions and in the Andes (Rehder, 1940; Kalkmann, 1965)
The second lineage of P. spachiana f. ascendens/P. yedoensis complex included P. spachiana f. ascendens, the majority of wild P. yedoensis, and all cultivated P. × yedoensis accessions, along with a few P. sargentii (868-9 and 869), P. serrulata var. spontanea (802), and P. serrulata var. quelpaertensis (3) accessions, which would otherwise be placed in the first lineage
The phylogeny of the maternally inherited chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) showed that both wild P. yedoensis and all cultivated P. × yedoensis share the most recent common ancestor with P. spachiana f. ascendens, corroborating the results of our previous study (Cho et al, 2014)
Summary
The genus Prunus L., belonging to the family Rosaceae, subfamily Amygdaloideae, includes approximately 250 species of shrubs and trees, which are most abundantly distributed in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, and about 75 species are distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions and in the Andes (Rehder, 1940; Kalkmann, 1965). Origin of Flowering Cherries a wide variety of ornamental and cultivated plants, flowering cherries (Prunus subgenus Cerasus) are undoubtedly the most popular trees in public and residential landscapes (gardens, parks, and streets). Many forms of ornamental flowering cherries with diverse origins and traits are being cultivated and a wide range of wild flowering cherry species are found in the forests of eastern Asia. The distinction between wild and cultivated flowering cherries is often somewhat ambiguous, as they share several very similar features that make it challenging to discriminate them. Wild Prunus yedoensis, which was first collected by Taquet in 1908 and reported by Koehne in 1912, occurs naturally on Jeju Island, Korea, and it has very similar morphological features as the cultivated P. Wild Prunus yedoensis, which was first collected by Taquet in 1908 and reported by Koehne in 1912, occurs naturally on Jeju Island, Korea, and it has very similar morphological features as the cultivated P. × yedoensis “Someiyoshino.” As a result of nearly indistinguishable morphological characteristics of wild P. yedoensis and cultivated P. × yedoensis as well as the unsolved question of the ambiguous origin of cultivated P. × yedoensis, their taxonomic identities and origins have been debated for over several decades
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