| Draba micropetala Hook. | |
| Publ. & Syn. | Draba adamsii auct., non Ledeb. (1841). |
| Notes | Draba micropetala is easily recognized by dense rosettes with leaves short, broad, and rounded obtuse, mainly covered with very coarse, many-branched (long-stalked cruciform) hairs, especially towards the leaf apices, petals very small and dirty pale yellow, and an infrutescence usually distinctly elongating with fruits oblong, greyish green, and hairy. Its northwestern European range is restricted to Svalbard. The name D. oblongata was for a long time used for this species. Mulligan (1974a) showed that it belongs to - and has priority for - a whiteflowered species in the D. cinerea aggregate, later described and generally known as D. groenlandica E. Ekman. The first valid name for the yellow-flowered species is D. micropetala Hook. 1825. Its type (in K), identified by Mulligan, is unambiguous. Petrovsky and Elven: Draba oblongata subsp. minuta from northeastern Asia corresponds to plants of D. micropetala in other areas. This name is therefore here reduced to synonymy. The chromosome number of subsp. minuta is the same as otherwise documented for D. micropetala. When describing this subspecies, Petrovsky in Petrovsky and Zhukova (1981) compared with D. oblongata as described by Porsild (1955) but Porsild's plant is the rather different D. simmonsii. Petrovsky's mistake is therefore easily explained. |
| Chromosomes | 48 (6x). - Europe (Svalbard), Far East (Wrangel Island). - Three reports, several counts for D. adamsii and D. oblongata subsp. minuta. Not included: The majority of the reports of decaploids (2n = 80) that Löve and Löve (1975a) assigned to D. micropetala probably belong to D. alpina s. str. Their reason for this strange treatment is unknown. We know no report of high polyploids among the 'micropetalous' yellow-flowered Drabas and no such Drabas are known from Scandinavia from where the type of D. alpina is. |
| Geography | Circumpolar: NOR RUS SIB RFE ALA CAN GRL. |
| Distribution | A = F AN = r B = F AO = s C = F GW = f D = F E = R CC = f WI = s YG = s HL = ? EP = f UN = s YK = s GE = f Kh = s SF = f CW = X Tm = f [ key ] |
| Parent taxon | Draba L. |
| PAF ID | 672102 |