Panarctic Flora

641006 Potentilla lyngei Jurtz. & Soják

• Jurtz. & Soják, Fl. Arct. URSS 9, 1: 317, 160 (1984). Holotype (LE): European Russia: Novaya Zemlya, Kostin Schar, 1937, leg. Baer.
• Potentilla sericea var. dasyphylla auct., non Ledeb. (1830).
• Potentilla sommerfeltii auct., non Lehm. (1849).

2n= 28 (4x). - Russia (Rybachi Peninsula). - Erlandsson in Löve and Löve (1942b, for P. pulchella).
This report, specified to be from "Finland", is almost certainly based on P. lyngei from the Russian Rybachi Peninsula which before World War II was part of Finland. The Rybachi Peninsula plant was assigned to P. pulchella until the description of P. lyngei (in 1984), e.g., by Hultén (1971b).

Geography: European (N): NOR RUS.

Notes: Elven: Kamelin (2001) applied Potentilla sommerfeltii Lehm. as a priority name replacing P. lyngei Jurtz. & Soják. Soják (2005) showed that Kamelin was in error and that the name P. sommerfeltii is a synonym of P. pulchella based on plants from Svalbard ("Ins. Spitzb.").

Yurtsev: Potentilla lyngei may be closely related to P. anachoretica but differs in a number of characters including the shape and dissection of leaf blades and their segments, less dense pubescence of leaf lower side (the straight hairs on it smooth), wider and shorter epicalyx segments, and by growing in less dry sites. Typical specimen from northeastern Greenland is from Treill islands but see notes. The others also from Greenland were identified by J. Soják as subsp. spissa (with approximate leaflets). As to the relations between P. insularis and P. lyngei, one needs to examine in detail the former species because P. pulchella, which was compared in RAPDs, isoenzymes, and morphology to P. insularis as a representative of sect. Multifidae = [Pensylvanicae] stands rather separate in the system of the section. Without such analysis I do not agree to transfer P. insularis into other section from Pensylvanicae to which it belongs by diagnostic features. Whereas P. anachoretica has an incomplete amphi-Beringian (Megaberingian) range (central Taimyr to the central Brooks Range), P. lyngei has an incomplete amphi-Atlantic one (Vaigach, Novaya Zemlya to northeastern Greenland).

Elven: Our discussions concerning P. lyngei and its putative hybrids have been especially fierce as we here have some experimental data. Potentilla lyngei is a recognizable species with good populations on the Rybachi Peninsula in the Murman area and on Vaigach and Novaya Zemlya (O, S). It differs clearly from all other Potentillas in these areas and also from P. anachoretica (as stated by Yurtsev). We therefore all accept P. lyngei from these Russian regions. The problems arise when Yurtsev and Soják attempt to interpret a few and sometimes incomplete herbarium specimens from other regions, here Svalbard and Greenland, where they do not know the context of the plants.

Yurtsev (PAF proposal and above) and Soják based their Svalbard record of P. lyngei on a single collection from Mt. Gipshuken, of leaves and stems separated on a sheet. Hamre (2000) identified this material as P. insularis. The collection locality has been extensively investigated several times (most recently by R. Elven, E. Hamre, K.T. Hansen, J. Nyléhn, and T. Engelskjøn) and only P. insularis, P. nivea, P. pulchella, and the less related P. hyparctica have been found there. Populations from this locality of the three former species were included in the molecular investigations of Svalbard Potentilla. There is currently no evidence for P. lyngei at Mt. Gipshuken. However, a plant resembling the very distinctive Novaya Zemlya and Rybachi Peninsula P. lyngei has recently (2010) been identified in the material from the nearby Mt. Templet, together with a very polymorphic population connecting it to P. arenosa subsp. chamissonis (TROM). We provisionally assign this plant to P. lyngei but it may represent an independent taxon.

The northeastern Greenland records of P. lyngei s. str. and of a subsp. spissa are by us either refuted or assigned otherwise. Material from Nordvestfjord near Scoresbysund, northeastern Greenland (ALA), identified as P. lyngei by Yurtsev in 1990, was later identified by B. Eriksen in 1996 as P. arenosa s. lat. and belongs in our opinion to P. pedersenii with, e.g., semidigitate leaves, not very close to P. lyngei. Other specimens identified as P. lyngei by Soják really have pinnate leaves but differs from P. lyngei in several other characters. These characters rather suggest a hybrid or a hybrid species involving P. hyparctica and P. pulchella, see P. safronovae below.