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Systematics Of The North American Plums (Prunus Subgenus Prunus Section Prunocerasus; Rosaceae), Joey Thomas Shaw

Doctoral Dissertations

The North American plums (Prunus subgenus Prunus section Prunocerasus; Rosaceae) are a closely related group with approximately 17 commonly recognized species and lesser taxa. They are infamous for their very poor development of reproductively isolating barriers and most are interfertile in many combinations. This interfertility blurs nearly all morphologically-based taxonomic boundaries. Even still, geographically related morphological variation exists and when intermediates are ignored several taxa may be seen as being reasonably different from one another with respect to both morphology and ecology. Additionally, the ranges of most of the North American plum taxa overlap with the ranges of …