343220 Puccinellia svalbardensis Rønning
Distribution
Svalbard - Franz Joseph Land: Rare
Northern arctic Tundra: Rare
Mid Arctic Tundra: Rare
- Rønning, Kongel. Norske Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. (Trondheim) 1961, 4: 9 (1963). Holotype (TROM!): Norway: Svalbard, Vestspitsbergen, Kongsfjorden, the Lovén Islands, island south of Sigridøya, 23. Aug. 1958, leg. O.I. Rønning. - Phippsia svalbardensis (Rønning) Á. Löve & D. Löve, Bot. Not. 128: 500 (1976).
2n=
42 (6x). - Europe (Svalbard). - Rønning (1963b).
Geography: European (N): NOR.
Notes: This Svalbard endemic is enigmatic. Before its description as a new species, the material was assigned to P. tenella. Hughes and Halliday (1980) did not fully accept P. svalbardensis but commented on it in connection with P. tenella (from which it differs markedly morphologically and also in being hexaploid vs. diploid). The species was described from a single group of small bird-manured islands, now so heavily grazed by geese that no flowering shoots have been seen in the last years. Reports from two ecologically similar but quite distant island groups in Svalbard have not been confirmed, and reports of it as frequent in a continental Arctic Steppe area (Elvebakk and Nilsen 2004) seems to belong to a different species entered below as P. sp. "Svalbard" (Elven et al. unpubl.). Puccinellia svalbardensis is therefore not now known from outside the Lovén Islands in western Spitsbergen.
Higher Taxa
- Puccinellia [3432,genus]