| Gentianopsis Ma | |
| Publ. & Syn. | Ma, Acta Phytotax. Sin. 1: 7 (1951). |
| Notes | The variation among the arctic plants of Gentianopsis is not resolved and our treatment is provisional. The genus has two centres of diversity, one in central Asia and another in temperate North America (Gillett 1957; Iltis 1965). The few representatives that reach the Arctic are morphologically fairly similar but differ in some presumed unrelated characters and are very disjunctly distributed. They have been treated partly as one species (Gentianopsis [Gentiana, Gentianella detonsa] s. lat.; Gillett 1957, 1963); as two (G. detonsa and G. barbata; Hultén 1948, 1968a); or as several (Iltis 1965). Six names are involved: "detonsa" based on plants from Iceland, "barbata" on plants from western Siberia, "nesophila" on plants from Quebec, "raupii" on plants from the Mackenzie River valley in the Northwest Territories, "richardsonii" on plants from east of the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories, and "yukonensis" on plants from the Yukon Territory. The three entities "detonsa", "nesophila", and "richardsonii" are littoral or at least coastal, the three others mainly interior. Gillett (1957, 1963) treated the North American variation as eight subspecies of Gentiana/Gentianella detonsa, four as non-arctic in western U.S.A. and Mexico. He included "richardsonii" in subsp. detonsa but did not much take into consideration the mainly Asian G. barbata which he synonymized with G. detonsa. Hultén (1968a, 1973) assigned the coastal northwestern Alaskan and northwestern Canadian plant to G. detonsa s. str. but considered the interior "yukonensis" plant a northwestern American part of G. barbata. Cody (1996) followed Gillett and treated it as a subspecies of G. detonsa. North American and Eurasian variation has not been effectively and experimentally compared. We mainly follow Russian authors and Hultén and accept three species. The assignment of some of the entities to species just follows referred sources. In addition, several combinations of names are missing, and should preferably remain missing until the species are clear, but see G. barbata subsp. raupii below. |
| Chromosomes | 10 (2x). - Europe (N), Siberia (S), Far East (N), Alaska, Greenland. - Numerous reports. |
| Geography | Circumpolar-alpine: ICE NOR RUS SIB RFE ALA CAN GRL. |
| Parent taxon | Gentianaceae |
| Child taxa |
Gentianopsis barbata (Froel.) Ma Gentianopsis detonsa (Rottb.) Ma Gentianopsis nesophila (Holm) Iltis Gentianopsis richardsonii (A.E. Porsild) |
| PAF ID | 7604 |