Panarctic Flora

410723 Rumex graminifolius Rudolph ex Lamb.

• Lamb., Trans. Linn. Soc. London 10: 264 (1811). Stated to have been described from Kamtchatka and the Kurile Islands in the Russian Far East but probably based on plants collected between Yakutsk and Okhotsk in eastern Siberia. - Acetosella graminifolia (Rudolph ex Lamb.) Á. Löve, Rep. Dept. Agric. Univ. Inst. Appl. Sci. (Reykjavik), ser. B, 3: 109 (1948).

2n= 40 42 (6x). - Europe (N), Siberia (N). - Zhukova (1969, 2n = 40); Borgen and Elven (1983).
Not included: The reports of octoploids (2n = 56) referred by Löve and Löve (1975a) at least partly belong to R. acetosella subsp. arenicola (e.g., those listed by Löve 1941b, 1942, 1943, 1957). The voucher of an northeastern Asian octoploid count reported by Zhukova (1968) should be investigated as should that of the 2n = 40 count of Zhukova (1969).

Geography: European (N) - Asian (N/C): RUS SIB RFE?

Notes: Murray and Elven: The uncertainty about the Russian Far East concerns the identity of the arctic plants. Kashina and Tupitsina (1992) mapped Rumex graminifolius from the Arctic only east to the Lena River where it co-occurs with R. aureostigmaticus. They assigned all northern plants from farther east to R. aureostigmaticus. Tzvelev (1989) mapped two very isolated localities for R. graminifolius in West and East Chukotka but this may be due to some technical application of characters. Material from northern Alaska has been re-identified as R. aureostigmaticus.

Hultén (1928) cited the following material as relevant for choice of type of the name R. graminifolius: (a) "Kamtchatka", collector unknown (LE), (b) "Rumex graminifolius Georgi Kamtschatka", collector unknown, Lindley dedit 1830 (B), and (c) "in Ins. Curilis - Kamtschatka", collector unknown (S). He found the plant to be extremely rare (if present) in Kamtchatka and to deviate strongly from the description. His statement was: "The occurrence of the head species i.e., [R. graminifolius] in Kamtchatka needs further confirmation". Tzvelev's (1989) suggestion that the original plants may have been collected in southeastern Yakutia, rather than in Kamtchatka, seems well founded. The long, filiform leaves of the description (and illustration) is much more typical of the interior Siberian and Russian plants than of the coastal Pacific ones. This species might be restricted to northern Fennoscandia, northern European Russia, and northern and central Siberia east to the Lena River and southeastern Yakutia.

Rumex graminifolius in the boreal Russian and Siberian meaning does not reach the Arctic in Fennoscandia even if it approaches in northeastern Norway. Also many of the reports from the arctic parts of European Russia seem to refer to R. acetosella subsp. arenicola but R. graminifolius probably occurs along some major rivers. It clearly reaches the Arctic in Siberia (e.g., along the Ob, Jenisei, and Lena rivers).