830502 Myosotis laxa Lehm.
- Lehm., Pl. Asperif. Nucif. 1: 83 (1818). Described from North America ("America septentrionali").
Geography: Nearly circumboreal & South American.
Notes: The infraspecific variation in Myosotis laxa s. lat. in Europe including Russia is complicated and not sufficiently studied. We have assumed that there is one major American and amphi-Atlantic but non-arctic subsp. laxa, one major Eurasian subsp. cespitosa that reaches the Arctic, probably only as an adventive, and one more local and non-arctic subsp. baltica (Sam.) Hyl. ex Nordh. in the Baltic area (see, e.g., Hultén and Fries 1986). If the taxa we recognize in northwestern Europe are connected to the names we apply, subsp. cespitosa and subsp. laxa are too insufficiently differentiated to deserve the specific rank accepted by Petrovsky (1980a, PAF proposal). However, there are some doubts whether the European interpretation of the American plant is correct. In the original diagnosis (and illustration), Lehmann stated M. laxa to have ebracteate racemes, whereas the northern European plants assigned to M. laxa s. str. are characterized vs. subsp. cespitosa by being bracteate.
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Source: Fabelfroh at Wikispecies
