Panarctic Flora

641052-54 The Potentilla crantzii aggregate P. crantzii, P. gelida, P. protea

Geography: Amphi-Atlantic - European - Asian.

Notes: Elven and Yurtsev: The parts of this aggregate that reach the Arctic consist of the amphi-Atlantic Potentilla crantzii and the mainly Asian P. gelida subsp. boreoatlantica. Soják (in revision, e.g., in O) and Yurtsev (PAF proposal) previously assigned northwestern European plants with regularly five leaflets to P. crantzii, those with regularly three leaflets to P. gelida, and those with intermediate or mixed numbers of leaflets to their hybrid P. x scandica. This variation is now considered to be within P. crantzii, within populations, often within clones, and sometimes even within shoots. Northern European P. crantzii is polymorphic and mixed sexual and agamic (e.g., Czapik 1961; Smith 1963; Asker and Jerling 1992; Nyléhn 2002).

Kurtto et al. (2004) synonymized P. gelida with P. crantzii but this may be due to Soják's application of the name P. gelida to northern European plants. We accept P. gelida but not as present in northwestern Europe. It has morphological characteristics besides the leaflet number (see Yurtsev's note below) and is predominantly or exclusively tetraploid, whereas P. crantzii varies much in chromosome numbers. Due to Soják's treatment, it is difficult to tell where the limit between P. crantzii and P. gelida runs, whether in northeastern European Russia or in northwestern Siberia. For their distribution we follow Kobeleva (1976b) rather than Yurtsev (1984b).