[pbs] Question about Naked Ladies
Jane McGary
janemcgary at earthlink.net
Fri Dec 21 13:30:10 EST 2007
David askedm
>There is a botanical word Im looking for its something like gradient,
>but I dont think thats the word. It is used when referring to a species
>with a broad distribution which has one form at one end of its
>distribution and a very different form at the other end. The two extreme
>forms are sometimes considered separate species. But when the
>distribution is continuous and every intermediate form is found and there
>is no bar to interbreeding, this special word is used, and the population
>is considered a single species with disparate extreme forms
This is called a continuum. The same term is used in linguistics to
describe a series of dialects of a language, the adjacent ones of which may
be mutually intelligible, but the extremes of which may not be.
Jane McGary
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