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To: general_re
Right. I forgot - Abbott's thesis is subject to absolute, conclusive proof,..

Actually, the answers to a few simple questions would be helpful. The question was: what is the documentation that the parent species was introduced into Britain? A web site that states "In England, Oxford ragwort was introduced?" What were the circumstances of that introduction? A single pot in a greenhouse? A planting of several thousand plants on a hillside? (Surely you can understand how one circumstance might have hidden a plant stow-away better than another.)

Farmer18th: There has not been one consistent defense of the new versus newly catalogued question.
General_re: There is not one single shred of evidence in favor of any of those


English gardener, circa 1903: Dearest, I believe I've discovered a plant without a name! I don't see it any of the field guides.

English gardener, circa 2003: What a find, this! Evolution at work, man! It's not in any of the field guides.

Who, really, is from Mars, here? Why is it so difficult to answer the simple question: why do you consider the current naming of the plant inventory complete?
551 posted on 02/26/2003 2:26:23 PM PST by farmer18th
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To: farmer18th
What were the circumstances of that introduction? A single pot in a greenhouse? A planting of several thousand plants on a hillside? (Surely you can understand how one circumstance might have hidden a plant stow-away better than another.)

What plant is supposed to have stowed away? Are you positing that this new plant was actually hidden away among the Oxford ragworts as it was planted in England for the first time? Is that your new "reasonable" (and therefore "likely") hypothesis?

Why not look up the article where the introduction of the Oxford ragwort is discussed? Here, I'll even give you the cite:

Abbott, R.J., James, J.K., Irwin, J.A. & Comes, H.P. (2000) Hybrid origin of the Oxford ragwort, Senecio squalidus L. Watsonia 23: 123-138.

Why is it so difficult to answer the simple question: why do you consider the current naming of the plant inventory complete?

Probably because it's the first time you've asked it directly? And when you've hinted at it before, I pointed you to the definitive guide to British flora, which you then suggested - not in so many words, of course - was an impossible project and not worthy of your attention?

You haven't met even your own standard, by showing that some other hypothesis is likely. Abbott has, but of course that's not good enough for the evolutionary explanation, is it?

552 posted on 02/26/2003 2:51:22 PM PST by general_re (Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.)
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