In message , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ,
Charlie Pridham writes:
|
| I've been looking (casually) at various reference books including
| the Oxford
| Book of Food Plants and Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food (both
| of which
| are the type of book that one opens to check one thing and find
| that one is
| still reading it an hour later). There appear to be 2 species: Artemisia
| dracunculus (French) and A. dracunculoides (Russian). I can see why you
| gave up as none of the references is definitive. What is needed is a
| botanist/gourmet to sort out the confusion{:-)
|
| The two tarragons are completely different species they look different
| taste different and grow differently, so called Russian tarragon is easy
| to do from seed, the french is not, as to correct species names, no idea!

I believe that is false, and there is a single, polymorphic species.
And the regression/development effect I mentioned turns mere confusion
into chaos. I.e. there are plants that are clearly one or the other,
a complete range of intermediates, and a clone's position on the scale
can wander around a bit.

There's not much botanical available online, but I found a 2007 paper
with assorted chromosome counts for subgenus Dracunculus. This reports 4
cytotypes of A. dracunculus (diploid, tetraploid, hexaploid and
decaploid), and gives A. dracunculoides as hexaploid. Wikipedia says
that French tarragon can't be propagated by seed, but elsewhere I see
claims that it's just a matter of poor seed set in cool climates.

Botanists don't seem to agree as to whether there is one species or two.

There is a paper on Artemisia phylogeny, but it's behind a pay-wall, and
I doubt that is sheds light on the dracunculus/dracuncoloides issue.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley