420405-06 The Minuartia rossii aggregate M. elegans, M. rossii
Geography: Amphi-Beringian (E) - North American (N) - amphi-Atlantic (W).
Notes: Elven, Murray, and Petrovsky: Maguire (1958) treated the two species below as Arenaria rossii subsp. rossii and subsp. elegans. Wolf et al. (1979) argued for rank of species due to morphological differences in several assumedly independent characters, cytology, and phytogeography. Many of the differences between Minuartia rossii and M. elegans are such that could be expected between a southern seed-reproducing and a northern and mainly bulbil-reproducing race. However, M. rossii keeps its special characters when cultivated under favourable conditions (greenhouse in Oslo) and does not change in the direction of M. elegans. We accept two species as did Rabeler et al. (2005).
Wolf et al. (1979) interpreted tetraploid M. elegans to be an autotetraploid, which might imply that M. rossii could be an allotetraploid with one diploid genome from M. elegans and one from another species. Minuartia stricta comes to mind.
Higher Taxa
- Minuartia [4204,genus]