Panarctic Flora

330505-07 The Eriophorum angustifolium aggregate E. angustifolium, E komarovii, E. triste

Geography: Circumboreal-polar.

Notes: Elven and Murray: Eriophorum angustifolium s. lat. has been treated alternatively as one polymorphic species with races or as a species group. Novoselova (1994, 1998, PAF proposal) recognized three taxa: E. angustifolium (by her as E. polystachion) with subsp. angustifolium (subsp. polystachion) and subsp. komarovii, and E. triste. The name E. polystachion has subsequently been rejected by ICBN (after proposal by Turland 1997a). Novoselova considered E. triste to be nearly circumpolar in the High Arctic, E. angustifolium subsp. angustifolium to be boreal to Low Arctic circumpolar, and subsp. komarovii to be distributed mainly south of the range of subsp. angustifolium in eastern Siberia, Mongolia, northeastern China, the Russian Far East as far north as the southern Anadyr region, southern Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, and in northern U.S.A. and southern Canada east to the east coast of North America. This range for subsp. komarovii is almost exactly the same as mapped by Hultén (1962) for his E. angustifolium subsp. scabriusculum, and the diagnostic characters are the same. We consider these two names synonyms even if a type of Hultén's name has not yet been designated. In case of subspecies, the names are therefore E. angustifolium subsp. angustifolium and subsp. scabriusculum as the latter name has priority long before subsp. komarovii for the second subspecies.

We have applied Novoselova's characters (and some additional ones) on material (ALA, O) from the North Atlantic regions, North America, the Russian Far East, and Siberia. We find that they divide it distinctly into three taxa with very few transitional forms. We recognize the three taxa as species: E. angustifolium s. str., E. komarovii, and E. triste. The plants with transitional features, both those between E. triste and E. angustifolium (which overlap extensively) and those between E. komarovii and E. angustifolium (which overlap to a lesser degree), have largely aborting anthers and pollen and seem to be sterile hybrids. See Elven and Murray (in prep.).