Editing Tragopogon (section)

==Hybrid speciation==
Salsifies are one example where [[hybrid speciation]] has been observed.<ref>Ownbey, M. 1950. Natural hybrid speciation and amphiploidy in the genus ''Tragopogon''. American Journal of Botany 37:487–499.</ref><ref>S.J. Novak, D.E. Soltis, & [[P.S. Soltis]]. 1991. Ownbey's Tragopogons Forty Years Later. American Journal of Botany 78:1586–1600.</ref> In the early 1900s, humans introduced three species of goatsbeard into North America. These [[species]], the western salsify (''[[Tragopogon dubius|T. dubius]]''), the [[meadow salsify]] (''T. pratensis''), and the oyster plant (''[[Tragopogon porrifolius|T. porrifolius]]''), are now common in urban areas. In the 1950s, botanists found two new species in the regions of [[Idaho]] and [[Washington (state)|Washington]], where the three already known species overlapped. One new species, ''[[Tragopogon miscellus]]'', is a [[tetraploid]] [[Hybrid (biology)|hybrid]] of ''T. dubius'' and ''T. pratensis''. The other species, ''[[Tragopogon mirus]]'', is also an [[Polyploid|allopolyploid]], but its ancestors were ''T. dubius'' and ''T. porrifolius''.  These new species are usually referred to as "the Ownbey hybrids" after the botanist who first described them.  The ''T. mirus'' population grows mainly by reproduction of its own members, but additional episodes of hybrid speciation continue to add to the ''T. mirus'' population.<ref>Soltis, D. E., [[Soltis, P. S.]], Pires, J. C., Kovarik, A., Tate, J. A., & Mavrodiev, E. (2004).  Recent and recurrent polyploidy in ''Tragopogon'' (Asteraceae): cytogenetic, genomic and genetic comparisons.  ''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 82'', 485–501.</ref>