Panarctic Flora

862205 Artemisia arctica Less.

• Less., Linnaea 6: 213 (1831). Described from the North Pacific and Bering Straits areas: "Unalaschca, ad sinum St. Laurentii, ad Cap Espenberg, in insula St. Laurentii ... in Kamtschatka". A lectotype needs to be designated and Chamisso specimens relevant for Lessing's description are available in LE.
• Artemisia chamissoniana Besser, Nouv. Mém. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou 3: 77 (1834) nom. illeg.. Type: Alaska: Kotzebue Sound, leg. Chamisso.
• Artemisia chamissoniana var. saxatilis Besser ex Hook., Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 324 (1833). Type (K): U.S.A.: Rocky Mountains, lat. 52 degrees, leg. Drummond. - Artemisia norvegica subsp. saxatilis (Besser ex Hook.) H.M. Hall & Clem., Publ. Carnegie Inst. Wash. 326: 58 (1923).

Geography: Asian (NE) - amphi-Pacific/Beringian - Cordilleran.

Notes: Korobkov, Murray, and Elven: Artemisia arctica is polymorphic and mostly considered with several races in the Beringian regions and in the more southern mountains in western North America and northeastern Asia. We know of no type of the name A. arctica (see subsp. arctica below). This is unfortunate as all three proposed arctic races are present within the areas stated by Lessing in the protologue for the species: subsp. beringensis in the Aleutian Islands (but not mapped from Unalaska by Hultén 1968a) and St. Lawrence Island, and both subsp. arctica and subsp. ehrendorferi in East Chukotka and western Alaska. We all agree that subsp. beringensis differs well morphologically from the others. We are in more doubts about the two others.

Korobkov: Based on detailed taxonomical investigations of northeastern Asian plants, the widely distributed tetraploid race was recognized as subsp. ehrendorferi. Tetraploids of Chukotka and Alaska are obviously identical, so this race also occurs in northwestern North America. In more southern parts of northeastern Asia and northwestern North America, this taxon demonstrates more complicated and more regionally specific polymorphism. It still remains to decide to which of the races - diploid or tetraploid - the name Artemisia arctica belongs. In my works (Korobkov 1981, 1987a), I stated arguments for the connection of the type subspecies with the diploid race. Unfortunately, this assumption has not received any confirmation yet.

Elven and Murray: Korobkov (1987a, 1992) mapped the assumedly tetraploid subsp. ehrendorferi to be the widespread race on the Asian side in all of Chukotka and farther south (including Kamtchatka), whereas the assumedly diploid subsp. arctica was restricted to the easternmost part of the Chukchi Peninsula. Both tetraploids and diploids are widespread on the American side. Tetraploids are known from northwestern and northern Alaska and western British Columbia, whereas diploids are known from central Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and the northwestern mainland Northwest Territories. The diploids are therefore not as narrowly Beringian in America as they seem to be in Asia. Looking at the Alaskan material, also we possibly see two morphological types. A type for the species name must be designated, and the morphological characters and ranges decided, before a full acceptance of two races is possible. We nevertheless enter the diploids and tetraploids as two subspecies, on the authority of Ehrendorfer and Korobkov. It is possible, from Ehrendorfer's indications, that a rough approximation of ranges can be accomplished by investigating size of the pollen grains.

It is not possible to assign the names A. norvegica subsp. saxatilis and A. chamissoniana to subspecies before a type for the name A. arctica has been designated and the types behind the two other names compared with it.