Panarctic Flora

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710401 Androsace chamaejasme Wulfen

Geography: European (C-S) & Asian (SW) & Asian (N/C) - amphi-Beringian - North American (NW).

Notes: Androsace chamaejasme s. lat. has a wide range throughout Eurasia and western North American, composed of many disjunct parts (se Hultén 1968a: 744). Plants in the different part areas have been described as several species and/or races. The most isolated part areas are in the central and southern European mountains (subsp. chamaejasme) and the Caucasus (A. lehmanniana Spreng. or subsp. lehmanniana (Spreng.) Hultén). Other parts of the range are found in central Asia and farther south, nearly as an interrupted ring around the Tibetan highland, in the Urals, in patches eastwards through northern Siberia, in several areas on both sides of the North Pacific from Japan to the Rockies, and in Beringia. Three races have been proposed to be present in the Arctic: an Asian Pacific subsp. capitata, a widespread northern subsp. lehmanniana (or subsp. arctisibirica), and a local subsp. andersonii within the range of subsp. lehmanniana in western Alaska.

Kelso (2009a: 260-261) in Flora of North America stated the following for this species: "Subspecies 2 (1 in the flora): North America, Eurasia ... range of subsp. [lehmanniana only in North America] ... Subspecies chamaejasme occurs across Eurasia..." and "All North American individuals are placed in subsp. lehmanniana, representing a widespread arctic-alpine distribution of A. chamaejasme from arctic North America to the Rocky Mountains". These statements implies one Eurasian ("chamaejasme") and one North American subspecies ("lehmanniana") in spite of "lehmanniana" being described from Europe (the Caucasus). However, Kelso has stated in comment that the account above was due to editorial short-cuts made in her account and that she neither consider subsp. lehmanniana to be exclusively American nor subsp. chamaejasme to be distributed across all of Eurasia. There is therefore probably no real conflict between our account below and her opinion of the group, except for a name question.

We accept two northern races, the Asian Pacific subsp. capitata and a widespread one from the Urals to nortwestern North America to which we for priority reasons apply the name subsp. andersonii.

Higher Taxa