Panarctic Flora

370135 Papaver lapponicum (Tolm.) Nordh.

• Nordh., Bergens Mus. Årbok 1931, Naturv. r. 2: 45-46 (1932). - Papaver radicatum subsp. lapponicum Tolm., Bot. Mater. Gerb. Glavn. Bot. Sada RSFSR 4: 86 (1923). Lectotype (LE!): European Russia: the Murman area, Oz. Imandra, 01. Aug. 1911, leg. R. Pohle (Egorova 1998: 98).

Geography: North American (N) - amphi-Atlantic - European (N) - Asian (N).

Notes: The analyses of AFLP markers and morphology support Papaver lapponicum as a species and with four races, more or less corresponding to four of the seven previously described subspecies (Solstad 2009): (1) a northern Canadian and northern Greenlandic subsp. occidentale, probably including subsp. porsildii (see reservations about this taxon below); (2) an amphi-Atlantic subsp. lapponicum including the Murman area subsp. lapponicum of Tolmachev (1975a) and Petrovsky (1999) and the Norwegian subsp. kvaenangense of Lundström (1923) and Nilsson (2001b) and subsp. scandinavicum of Knaben (1959a, 1959b), but extending the range of this race to also include plants in northeastern Greenland and the northern Urals and Taimyr; (3) a subsp. jugoricum in the northern Urals, as described by Tolmachev, but extending its range to Taimyr and northern Yakutia; and (4) a subsp. orientale in Taimyr and northern Yakutia but with a much smaller range than reported for this race by Tolmachev (1975a) and Petrovsky (1999).

Papaver lapponicum is much more varied than P. radicatum in both morphology and AFLP markers, and much more widespread. In the AFLP analysis, samples from non-Beringian arctic Canada, northern and central Greenland, northern Europe (incl. Russia), and northern Siberia eastwards to northern Yakutia, joined in a main cluster corresponding to P. lapponicum in the concepts of Knaben (1959a, 1959b) and Tolmachev (1932a, 1932b, 1975a), the two main early authors treating the variation within P. lapponicum.

Tolmachev (1932a, 1932b) described four races within Russian P. lapponicum: subsp. lapponicum from the Murman area (and also implied from northern Norway), subsp. dasycarpum from Novaya Zemlya (by us tentatively included in P. dahlianum, see above), subsp. jugoricum from Polar Ural and the Yugorski Peninsula eastwards to the Gydan, and subsp. orientale from the Jenisei eastwards to Chukotka. Knaben (1959a, 1959b) accepted only octoploids within P. lapponicum. She considered the Norwegian plants as a subsp. scandinavicum different from the nearby Murman area P. lapponicum s. str. (subsp. lapponicum), whereas she assigned the western arctic plants to three other subspecies: subsp. occidentale in the northern half of Greenland and in northern Canada, subsp. porsildii in the central parts of Greenland and in northern Canada, and subsp. labradoricum in the western and southern parts of Greenland and the southern parts of northeastern Canada. Knaben's treatment was based, in addition to ploidy, on morphology and on crossing experiments with "viability" studies of hybrid pollen and seed. The studies of isozymes and AFLP markers (Solstad et al. 2003; Solstad 2009) in the main support her combined cytological and morphological conclusions.

Petrovsky (1999) extended the range of P. lapponicum subsp. orientale by mapping it as frequent in Chukotka and as a major plant of Alaska and northern Canada (but not as reaching Greenland). Kiger and Murray (1997) did the same for North America and included P. hultenii (described by Knaben as a hexaploid species) in the synonymy of P. lapponicum.

The main differences between our treatment here and one or more of the previous ones are: (1) Papaver lapponicum subsp. labradoricum is not closely related to P. lapponicum and merits species rank as P. labradoricum. (2) Papaver hultenii deserves rank as species, perhaps more closely related to P. labradoricum than to P. lapponicum. (3) No evidence is found for presence of any part of P. lapponicum within Beringia, i.e., in the Russian Far East, Alaska, the Yukon Territory, or in the (mainland) Northwest Territories. (4) No support is found for maintaining P. lapponicum subsp. porsildii as a taxon different from subsp. occidentale; however, few samples have been available from its reported range. (5) Papaver lapponicum subsp. lapponicum has a range reaching from Greenland across northern Fennoscandia to the Russian regions east of the Murman area. (6) The three races of P. lapponicum accepted as allopatric subspecies from the Russian areas are rather largely sympatric in northeastern European Russia and northwestern Siberia.