Panarctic Flora

810708 Pedicularis langsdorffii Fisch. ex Steven

• Steven, Mém. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou 6: 49 (1823). Described from Unalaska and St. Lawrence Island (Alaska).

2n= 16 (2x). - Far East (N), Alaska, Canada. - At least three reports for P. arctica and P. langsdorffii.

Geography: Asian (NE) - amphi-Beringian - North American (N).

Notes: Elven and Murray: Two names published the same year (1823) are relevant for this species: Pedicularis langsdorffii Steven, described on plants from the Bering Sea islands, and P. arctica R. Br., described on plants from Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The first-mentioned name has priority because Steven's paper appeared in a journal issue certainly printed early in 1823 and perhaps available to the public in an offprint already in late 1822, whereas Brown's 'Chloris Melvilliana' appeared late in 1823. Another name in this group is P. purpurascens Cham. ex Spreng. 1825, also this one based on plants from the Bering Sea area.

Russian authors (e.g., Ivanina 1980b: 307, PAF proposal) have assumed these three names to belong to three races of one species, var. arctica as the widespread race and two varieties mostly inside its range, var. langsdorffii from the Bering Straits and Sea areas and Wrangel Island and var. purpurascens from the Bering Straits and Sea areas only. Hultén (1968a) treated the variation as two subspecies. He mapped subsp. arctica as widespread from Kamtchatka and the Canadian Rockies north to Chukotka, arctic Canada, and northeastern Greenland. He mapped subsp. langsdorffii (including P. purpurascens) as restricted to the Aleutian Islands, the Bering Sea islands, and a very few mainland coastal sites in Alaska and Chukotka.

The variation is appreciable. Few observers would initially assign the extremes to the same species. We have surveyed the variation in the Beringian regions and find that it perhaps is possible to recognize three groups. (a) At one extreme are plants with small flowers (corolla < 20 mm) subtended by long bracts reaching well beyond the flowers, and with spikes that extends during and after flowering. These plants conform to P. arctica and occur more or less throughout but are rare on the Bering Sea islands and coasts. (b) At the other extreme are Bering Sea plants with large flowers (corolla > 20 mm) subtended by short bracts not emerging beyond the flowers, and with short spikes that does not extend much during and after flowering. These plants occur only on the islands (the Aleutian Islands, St. Paul Island, St. Matthew Island, and perhaps Walrus Islands and St. Lawrence Island). We do not know which of the names P. langsdorffii (s. str.) and P. purpurascens are referrable to these plants. If groups (a) and (b) were the only one, acceptance of two species might be appropriate. However, there is a large material (c) from the islands and from the coastal parts of southwestern and western Alaska and East Chukotka that combines characters from the two others and also occupy an intermediate range geographically.

Ivanina's proposed ranges for her varieties imply that she identified her var. langsdorffii with our intermediate group (c) and her var. purpurascens with our more restricted Bering Sea island group (b). A closer study of type material is needed. Until more information is available, var. purpurascens is entered provisionally as subordinate to subsp. langsdorffii.