Horticultural hybrids and iNat

I would note that “artificial hybrid” doesn’t necessarily mean “horticultural hybrid” on POWO - I raised a flag a while ago to get × Reyllopia conollyana added to iNat and I was told to email them to ask them to accept it as naturally occuring.

POWO describes this species as an “artificial hybrid” - it’s a hybrid with the globally-invasive Japanese knotweed, so good luck finding anyone growing it deliberately, and the Russian-vine / mile-a-minute, a maybe-also-invasive-in-Western-Europe popular garden plant. Their hybrid is known to self-sow in Western Europe - plants have been found wild in Belgium and the UK, but it’s very rare.

I emailed POWO about that “artificial hybrid” tag and I was told that it IS artificial because it cannot possibly occur in the plant’s native ranges (the former to Japan, the latter to Central Asia - no overlap at all), but that doesn’t mean it can’t occur ‘naturally’ where both species are present such as Western Europe.

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I’m wondering then what their take would be on Rhododendron x hybridum, also marked as an artificial hybrid on POWO where the ranges of the parent species overlap naturally.

Well, send them to the forum and let them be indoctrinated that not every observation needs to be identified to species. But be forewarned, some of us have been here a while and still have not internalized that lesson.

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