HERB - safety of orange bergamot mint

[Kathleen Keeler]

Jenne Heise wrote:
Mentha citrata that is called Orange

> Bergamot mint

> Other sites call it Mentha X piperata var. citrate, so there may be

> some wierd naming conventions out there...

 Mentha citrata Ehrh.
         Synonym: Mentha piperita var. citrata
Jadwiga
Your url gave the above.   What that says is that its been called a variety of
peppermint, but the botanist whose name is abbreviated Ehrh.  (if you name enough
things, you get an abbreviation:  L. is Linneaus, Thunb. is Thunberg, Raf. is
Rafinesque, Nutt. is Nuttall) decided it was "different enough" from peppermint to
recognize it as a separate species, Mentha citrata.

Normally a species is reproductively isolated from other species (can't cross).
That works for most organisms most of the time, but note that lions and tigers cross
in zoos, horses and donkeys cross to make mules which are sterile, but might be
Equus x, an interspecific hybrid like peppermint.

 Plants are worse than mammals in making exceptions.   Here's one reason why:  often
the traits that separate species only evolve if the species sometimes mate--then its
good to evolve characters that prevent that, rather than have  offspring that are
sterile or maladapted hybrids.  Red hummingbird-pollinated columbine (Aquilegia) in
the Rocky Mountains can hybridize with yellow bumblebee pollinated columbine--but
neither hummingbirds nor bumblebees are attracted to the hybrids, which hold their
flowers at an odd angle and are a muddy intermediate color:  any traits that block
such hybrids will be passed on better than when hybrids are made.

BUT many related plants (species in the same genus) were historically separated by
space.  The desert plant and the forest plant just never were in the same place, so
crossing never came up.  When we plant them together in a garden, they hybridize.
Very different histories, very different ecologies, often very different flowers and
leaves, but no breeding barrier.  So "they won't cross" isn't always a good way to
know whether two plants are different species.  And so the taxonomists get to use
their judgement.

There's a bunch of things to look for--flower, leaf, fruit differences, do natural
integradations occur?, did they naturally come from the same place or quite
different places?  etc.

With cultivated species, defining species is much much worse.  Where did they come
from?  Sometimes noone knows. What species were crossed to make this species?
Sometimes there were repeated crosses with different relatives and its very hard to
reconstruct (and in the case of wheat, one of the ancestors is extinct).  So, should
we call it a variety (distinguishable type is what a variety usually is, something
you can tell apart because of some characteristic, but can and does cross and lose
its character) or a separate species (implying its an isolated entity which will
maintain its uniqueness even given an opportunity to cross)?

Add to this:  lots of people using cultivated plants don't know or care about
botanical nomenclature, that to sell things, the more distinctive or catchy the
name, the better, and some groups have not been analysed by a taxonomist in years
but have had horticultural development going on at a great rate.  Finally, taxonomy
has "lumpers" and "splitters".  Lumpers would make only a few species or varieties,
splitters recognize even small variations.

The best part about finding it as Mentha  citrataEhrh. is that that should mean that
Ehrh. published his/her reasons for raising orange bergamot mint to the status of
independent species, and we could find the publication and read his/her
justification.

That's one use of the authors names.  If it says Ipomoea alba Raf. and your source
says Ipomea alba Barg. you are quite definately dealing with two people's different
view of the white morning glory (moon vine), and shouldn't be surprised if the
details don't match.

Toxicodendron radicans (L.) O. Ktze. means the original description was by Linneaus,
but Otto Kuntze revised the group, see his publication for justification of the
current names and taxonomic status.  Usually that means the species got put into a
different genus.
In fact  poison ivy asToxicodendron radicans (L.) O. Ktze. is from a 1986
publication. In a 1970 pub. I find poison ivy as Rhus radicans L.   Kuntze
apparently decided poison ivy deserved a genus of its own (Rhus includes sumac).

Cheers
Agnes
I'm a lumper:  fewer things to learn. ;-)
kkeeler1 at unl.edu



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