Over a million thousand years of raising a breadfruit , hundreds of named cultivars have been

developed that display a high degree of morphological diversity. The current study was undertaken to
evaluate morphological diversity within the National Tropical Botanical Garden’s breadfruit germplasm
collection, the largest and most diverse breadfruit collection in the world. A set of 57 standardized
morphological descriptors including 29 leaf, 22 fruit, four seed, and two male inflorescence
characteristics were used to describe and contrast 221 accessions of breadfruit including accessions of
Artocarpus camansi Blanco, altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg, A. mariannensis Trécul, early generation A. altilis
× A. mariannensis hybrids, and domesticated A. altilis × A. mariannensis hybrids. A morphological
transition from heavily seeded fruit covered with flexible spines to fewer seeded, smoother skinned fruit
of similar size was observed in the domestication of A. altilis from A. camansi. Further selection of true
seedless, smooth-skinned cultivars of A. altilis appears to have occurred with human migrations from
Melanesia into Polynesia. Cultivars from Micronesia exhibit morphological characteristics indicative of
hybridization with the endemic species A. mariannensis. These data were used to generate a multi-
access cultivar identification key on the Lucid platform that can be used to identify trees of known
cultivars or to predict nearest cultivar relationships for previously undescribed cultivars. Overall, this
study provides new insights into the morphological changes that occurred during domestication, helps
visualize the diversity that exists across geographical regions, and provides a framework for cultivar
identification and germplasm conservation.

Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg, commonly known as breadfruit, is a tree from the
Moraceae family grown on the islands of Oceania and primarily used as a food source. It was
domesticated in equatorial New Guinea or Western Melanesia over 3,000 years ago and carried
by Lapita peoples (Kirch 1997:38; Kirch 2000:78–79) and their ancestors as they settled the
mostremote islands of the Pacific (Fosberg1960; Jarrett 1959; Quisumbing 1940; Ragone1987,
1991, 1995, 2001, 2006; Ragone andPaull 2008; Zerega 2003; Zerega et al. 2004).Breadfruit
reaches heights of 10 to 20 m, bearsfruit at seven years and continues to produce for30 to 40
years, and grows best where annualrainfall is between 1,500 to 3,000 mm (Abbott1992; Neal
1965:303). While yield is varietydependent, on average a tree will produce 150 to200 fruits
annually and, at 160–500 kg per year,provided an important, reliable source of carbo-hydrates
in the era before Euro pean contact(Meilleur et al. 2004; Purseglove 1968; Ragone2006). It was
baked and mashed into a paste andon some islands was stored and fermented inunderground
pits to buffe r against seasonalvariations in food supply (Rag one 1991). InHawai‘i it also
provided wood for house construction, canoes, surf boards, and drums; its barkwas made into
cloth; and breadfruit latex was used for caulking canoes and to trap birds (Allenand Murakami
1999:103; Malo 1951:21; Neal1965:303; Rock 1974:117).Historical linguistics and genetics of
modern breadfruit from across the Pacific have been usefulin tracing the long-term history of
regional translocations (Kirch and Green 2000; Zerega etal. 2004), however similarities among
Eastern Polynesian cultivars make it difficult to reconstruct the immediate origins of the single
variety found in Hawai‘i. For example, Zerega et al.(2004)examined AFLP(amplified fragment
length polymorphism) data from Oceania using three primer sets yielding 149 polymorphic
markers across 254 individuals and found Eastern Polynesian cultivars were the “least
genetically diverse and probably originated from a much reduced gene pool” (Zerega et al.
2004:226).Indigenous terms used for the Hawaiian variety of breadfruit—mei maoi in the
Marquesas, kurumaori in the Cook Islands, ‘uru maohi in Society Islands, ‘ulu e‘a in Samoa, and
‘ulu in Hawai‘i(Ragone 1991)—are also extremely similar to one another since they derive from
the same ancestral terms in Proto-Polynesian (*kulu or *mei) rooted in Proto-Oceanic (*kulur)
(Kirch2000:110;Kirch and Green 2000:123).Domesticates were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands
either with initial human colonization or through secondary introduction after settlements were
established. Colonial introduction of domes-tic plants and animals began with the arrival of the
archipelago’s first people who set sail from the1Received 8 February 2010; accepted 6 October2010;
published online. Economic Botany, XX(X), 2010, pp. 1–8.© 2010, by The New York Botanical Garden
Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A .Marquesas