French Tarragon Sterility

[Adam Igra]

It appears the main culinary cultivar, "French Tarragon", has been cloned for centuries and is not propogated by seed. Claims I have seen are that it rarely flowers, its flowers are mostly sterile, and the seeds it does produce are either sterile or are closer to the poorer quality "russian" or wild(er) tarragon which is seemingly unused cullinarily. Tarragon has fairly robust rhizomes from which it can spread asexually, though herbacious cuttings are supposedly not easy to take.

This suggests to me that one or more of these is likely:
A. The plant lost its ability to set seed over many centuries of cloning, similar to many potatoes and garlics,
B. The plant is a mutant from birth, but was already sterile,
C. It was a mutant Sport of another variety that required cloning as it didnt set similar offspring, and eventually A happened too.

If it is like garlics, viable seed should be harvestable with enough brute statistics: Letting that plant seed would then hopefully provide a tasty offspring.
This would only be worth doing IMO to protect the cultivar from further degredation and disease. Regardless its an intetesting case study of a sterile cloned cultivar. If anyone lives near a tarragon farm, perhaps ask if the farmer has seen it flower 

I will buy a french tarragon plant for herb use and see what comes of it.

[A. Pel]

Very cool project - please post any results you have - even the negative ones.

Good Luck!