630505-07 The Astragalus norvegicus aggregate A. eucosmus, A. norvegicus, A. sealei
Geography: Nearly circumpolar-alpine.
Notes: Murray and Elven: Scoggan (1978c) synonymized Astragalus sealei with A. eucosmus f. eucosmus (one of his four forms). Also Gillett et al. (2007) and Welsh (2007) included A. sealei in A. eucosmus. Hultén (1968b and elsewhere) accepted subsp. eucosmus and subsp. sealei but commented on the similarity between subsp. sealei and the Eurasian A. norvegicus. Yurtsev (PAF proposal) accepted three species. We have compared material of the three taxa and share Yurtsev's opinion. We find the diploid amphi-Beringian A. sealei to be morphologically more similar to the diploid Eurasian A. norvegicus than to the tetraploid North American A. eucosmus. An alternative might then be to assign A. sealei as a race to A. norvegicus but we are not aware of such a combination. Together these three constitute a nearly circumpolar-alpine aggregate.
Higher Taxa
- Astragalus [6305,genus]