| Poa arctica subsp. arctica | |
| Publ. & Syn. | Poa brintnellii Raup, Sargentia 6: 112 (1947). Holotype (F): Canada: the Northwest Territories, southern shore of Brintnell Lake, 16. Aug. 1939, leg. J.H. Soper and H.M. Raup 9827. |
| Notes | Nannfeldt (1940) accepted six minor races within Poa arctica (as subspecies by Nannfeldt 1940, as varieties by Hylander 1953b) in Fennoscandia and Iceland, as parts of the larger variation which he left undivided. A seventh race, his unpublished subsp. wahlenbergii (annotations in herbaria), was the only race reaching the Arctic in Norway. Except for subsp. caespitans, we do not accept these races as worthwhile taxa, and as the published taxa are non-arctic we do not include them in the synonymy above. Viviparous (bulbil-reproducing) plants have been reported within P. arctica subsp. arctica. In Svalbard, viviparous plants with the general appearance of P. arctica are about as frequent as are seminiferous plants. A re-evaluation of these viviparous plants in 2010 (Elven and Alsos) showed that a main diagnostic character of P. arctica s. lat. vs. P. pratensis s. lat., presence of hairs or setae between the veins on the lemmas, was absent in the viviparous plants. We now suspect that viviparous plants may be a hybridogeneous swarm between P. arctica (subsp. arctica) and P. pratensis (subsp. alpigena). |
| Chromosomes | 42-74 (6x-ca. 11x). - Tzvelev (1976, PAF proposal), based on very numerous reports. |
| Geography | Circumpolar-alpine: NOR RUS SIB RFE ALA CAN GRL. |
| Distribution | N = S A = S AN = f B = F AO = f C = F GW = f D = F E = F CC = f WI = f YG = f HL = f FN = s EP = s CE = f CS = f UN = f YK = f AW = f GE = f Kh = f SF = f CW = f Tm = f KP = f [ key ] |
| Parent taxon | Poa arctica R. Br. |
| PAF ID | 342603a |