Multiple Lines of Evidence for Independent Origin of Wild and Cultivated Flowering Cherry ().

As with many other ornamental and cultivated plants that have been under human selection and cultivation for a long time, it has been a major challenge to trace back the complex evolutionary history of flowering cherry, . This challenge has been further amplified by great morphological similarities, little molecular divergence, frequent natural and artificial hybridization, and poor documentation of breeding history among cultivated and wild flowering cherries. The origin and taxonomic distinction between wild from Jeju Island, Korea, and one of the most popular cultivated flowering cherries, × "Somei-yoshino" has been a controversy for the past few decades. We sampled many areas extensively, and using four different molecular markers we provided evidence for their independent origin. Wild in Korea originated from multiple bidirectional hybridization events between two sympatric species, f. as the maternal species and var. / var. as the most probable paternal species. On the contrary, our results supported a single artificial hybrid origin of × "Somei-yoshino" from cultivated f. as the maternal species and , a species endemic to Izu Islands, as the paternal species. Based on extensive sampling, we provided strong evidence that wild and cultivated are distinct taxonomic entities that have originated from different evolutionary processes. A potential for the development of new cultivars from wild and conservation of diverse germplasms insular setting and should be explored in the future.