672136 Draba borealis DC.
Distribution
West Chukotka: Presence uncertain
South Chukotka: Rare
East Chukotka: Scattered
Western Alaska: Scattered
Northern Alaska - Yukon: Rare
Southern Arcti Tundra: Rare
Shrub Tundra: Scattered
Bordering boreal or alpine areas: Scattered
- DC., Syst. Nat. 2: 342 (1821). Holotype (G-DC!)?: Alaska: the Pribilof Islands, "Insula Sti Pauli", leg. Langsdorff.
- Draba luteola auct., non Greene (1899).
2n=
(1) 64 (8x). - Far East (East Chukotka). - Zhukova and Petrovsky (1984).
(2) 80 82 (10x). - Canada. - Mulligan (1966, 1970). Several counts.
Not included: Four of the six reports cited for this species by Löve and Löve (1975a: as 2n = 80) must be rejected as they were published as belonging to other species by the original authors and are based on plants from far outside the known range of the Pacific D. borealis: from Svalbard and Greenland (Heilborn 1927, for D. hirta from northern Greenland; Flovik 1940, for D. cinerea, i.e., D. arctica from Svalbard; Jørgensen et al. 1958, for D. hirta from Greenland; Böcher 1966a, from Greenland). The Löves stated D. borealis to be amphi-Pacific; consequently, their treatment is absurd.
Geography: Amphi-Pacific/Beringian: RFE ALA CAN.
Notes: Draba borealis is part of a North Pacific species group that includes, e.g., the northeastern Asian D. kurilensis (Turcz.) N. Busch and D. sakhalinensis Trautv. (the two possibly conspecific with but moderately different from D. borealis) and the northwestern North American D. maxima Hultén (probably to be included in D. borealis, see Al-Shehbaz et al. 2010a). The group is largely uninvestigated. Typical D. borealis with, e.g., broad stem leaves and distinctly twisted fruits seems to change gradually into D. maxima in the southern parts of its range and is restricted to the southern parts of Beringia north to western Alaska. Farther north, along the Bering Straits coast and in northern Alaska, occur plants that conform to D. borealis in formal features but which resemble D. glabella and/or D. cinerea in other features. Only such plants are found in the Arctic in northern Alaska and northwestern Canada.
Petrovsky: Reports from northern Siberia are mistakes based on plants later identified as D. juvenilis.
Elven: One report from West Chukotka (Chaun Bay; Berkutenko 1988) should perhaps be checked before acceptance.
Higher Taxa
- Draba [6721,genus]