Panarctic Flora

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421217 Silene sorensenis (B. Boivin) Bocquet

Distribution

Wrangel Island: Rare
Central Canada: Rare
Hudson Bay - Labrador: Rare
Ellesmere Island: Frequent
Western Greenland: Frequent
Eastern Greenland: Frequent
Polar desert: Rare
Northern arctic Tundra: Frequent
Mid Arctic Tundra: Frequent
Southern Arcti Tundra: Frequent
Shrub Tundra: Scattered

2n= 72 (6x). - Far East (N), Canada, Greenland. - Several reports.

Geography: Amphi-Beringian - North American (N): RFE CAN GRL.

Notes: Elven, Murray, and Petrovsky: The species name is Silene sorensenis because the older epithet "triflora" is inapplicable within Silene (homonymy). The name Lychnis triflora R. Br., Voy. Explor. Baffin's Bay, App.: 142 (1819), was a nomen nudum but was validated by Sommerfelt (1824). Boivin's name Lychnis sorensenis is based on a different type.

Bocquet (1967) accepted the hexaploid S. sorensenis from Greenland only, where it is fairly frequent. Very similar plants - and also hexaploids - occur several places in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (ALA, CAN, DAO, O), in Wrangel Island (LE), and perhaps elsewhere. Yurtsev (in comment) proposed to recognize a subsp. wrangelica in Wrangel Island. Petrovsky considers this plant a unique population, not a taxon. Sekretareva (1999) in addition reported S. sorensenis from Taimyr and East Chukotka but specimens should be compared with Greenland plants and confirmed before occurrence in these regions are accepted. Hultén (1968a) mapped one locality in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. We have not been able to confirm this and Morton (2005c) did not accept the record.

A hybrid hypothesis of the origin of S. sorensenis (Nygren 1951, supported by Kozhanchikov and Tolmachev 1971 and referred by Morton 2005c) - from S. uralensis (subsp. arctica) and S. involucrata (subsp. furcata) - is now replaced by another hypothesis by Popp et al. (2005), see above.

Higher Taxa