Panarctic Flora

370109 Papaver mcconnellii Hultén

• Hultén, Acta Univ. Lund., n. s., sect. 2, 41, 1: 803 (1945). Type: Canada: the Northwest Territories, mountains between Peel River and La Pierre House, 01. July 1888, leg. McConnell. Fragment of type ('kleptotype') in S!.
• Papaver denalii Gjærev., Kongel. Norske Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. (Trondheim) 1963, 4: 42 (1964). Holotype (TRH): Alaska: the Alaska Range, McKinley Park, Cathedral Mountain, 20. July 1959, leg. O. Gjærevoll.

2n= (1) 28 (4x). - Alaska, Canada (NW). - Murray and Kelso (1997, two counts, as P. denalii); Solstad (2009, three plants from two localities). Tetraploid in FCM, Solstad (2009, 32 plants from 9 localities).
(2) 42 (6x). - Alaska, Canada (NW). - Mulligan and Porsild (1969b, as P. alaskanum but within the range of P. mcconnellii). Hexaploid in FCM, Solstad (2009, four plants from four localities, in three of these also tetraploids).

Geography: American Beringian: ALA CAN.

Notes: Papaver mcconnellii was first described as a local species in northwestern Canada, in the mountains between the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories in northwestern Canada (Hultén 1945a, 1968a; Porsild and Cody 1980). Kiger and Murray (1997) extended its range into larger parts of southern and central Alaska by inclusion of P. denalii Gjærev. and also mapped it from western Alaska (Seward Peninsula). Populations from several additional parts of western and northwestern Alaska assign with this group in AFLPs and morphology (Solstad 2009). The three main diagnostic characters of P. mcconnellii vs. P. alaskanum are the larger flowers, the more numerous stamens, and the more dissected blades. These characters are shared by P. macounii which differs from both P. alaskanum and P. mcconnellii in its very long, narrowly obconical capsule with a pyramidal disc. A reported character of colour of bristles on the capsule (Kiger and Murray 1997) does not separate between the plants in the two AFLP clusters we assign as P. alaskanum and P. mcconnellii.

Also P. mcconnellii is polymorphic and may include several taxa. Three groups are discernible in the AFLP data: one in northwestern and western Alaska including the Seward Peninsula; one in south-central Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and the Northwest Territories, corresponding to P. mcconnellii as typified and probably to P. denalii; and one yet documented from the British Mountains in the northernmost Yukon Territory. The last-mentioned group is the most deviating in both AFLP markers and morphology.

Tolmachev (1975a) and Petrovsky (1999) suggested similarities between P. mcconnellii and the West Chukotkan P. anjuicum.