Panarctic Flora

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8609 Gnaphalium L.

GBIF

Notes: The Gnaphalium of Linnaeus (1753) was very polymorphic and has been split into numerous genera. Until recently, European authors have followed Holub (1976) and restricted the name Gnaphalium to some non-arctic plants, based on G. luteo-album L. as lectotype designated by Britton and Brown (1913) and Britton and Wilson (1925). The "old" Gnaphalium species that reach the Arctic have been assigned to Omalotheca and Filaginella. The designation of type for the name Gnaphalium is part of the old controversy between the American and European Codes of nomenclature, and the American choice of type, G. luteo-album, has been contested as 'automatic'. Nesom (2006a) argued that the first validly designated lectotype of the genus name Gnaphalium was G. uliginosum by Hitchcock and Green (1929), which means that the species below becomes (again) a Gnaphalium, whereas G. luteo-album becomes Pseudognaphalium luteo-album (L.) Hilliard & Burtt. Gnaphalium is now more or less accepted with G. uliginosum (= Filaginella uliginosa) as type, see Hilliard and Burtt (1981) and Jarvis et al. (1993). Additional arguments in this discussion are found in Jeffrey (1979) and McNeill et al. (1987).

Higher Taxa