A Biochemical Approach to Some Taxonomic Problems in the Genus Coprosma

Abstract

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS. In the frontispiece opposite can be seen the attractive range of colours obtainable when fruits are taken from the parents and a representative hybrid range of a typical Coprosma robusta x Coprosma propinqua Wellington coastal population. This variety of colour is not unexpected in such a population, except that the fruits of the entire lower half of the plate - Nos. 6-10 -are from divaricating shrubs which most botanists would identify as C. propinoua var. propinqua (Cook Strait coastal form) Oliver 1935. The most natural interpretation of this continuity of colour, or rather of yellow white opaqueness, from the fruits of the hybrids to those of "coastal" C. prooinqua, is that introgression of C. robusta into this coastal form has taken place with consequent blurring and intergradation of the original parent fruit characteristics.