Taraxacum hjeltii

Kirschner, Jan, Štěpánek, Jan & Buryy, Vladimir V., 2025, Towards a revision of Taraxacum sect. Borealia (Compositae, Crepidinae) in Siberia and the continental Far East, with special reference to the dandelions of the Altai and Kamchatka, Phytotaxa 679 (1), pp. 1-147 : 19

1. Taraxacum hjeltii ( Dahlstedt 1905: 151, 162) Dahlstedt (1906: 6) ≡ Taraxacum officinale var. boreale Hjelt & Hult (1885: 133) ≡ Taraxacum ceratophorum subsp. hjeltii Dahlstedt (1905: 151 , 162) Type:— FINLAND. Lapponia kemensis, Kolari, Yllässaari, ad Tiensuu, 5 Jul 1877, H. Hjelt & R. Hult (H 114751, lectotype, fide C. F.

Lundevall & H. Øllgaard in Kirschner & Štěpánek (1997a: 89); isolectotypes: C, G, no. det. 18873, GB 0047411 , photo!, K, no. det .

12318, O 2014930, photo!, S 10-38089!, UPS 595910!, LD 2126369!, etc.). Etymology:—Commemorating Albert Hjalmar Hjelt (1851–1925), an outstanding Finnish botanist.

= Taraxacum perfiljevii Orlova (1973: 269) , syn. nov.

Type:—[ RUSSIA, Nenetsk National Okrug, lower Pechora river, vicinity of Telvisochnoe] Nenetskiy nats. okrug, nizov’ya r. Pechory, okr. sel. Tel’visochnogo, 1930, A. I . Tolmachev ( LECB 0000399 !, holotype) .

Etymology:—Named after Ivan Alexandrovich Perfil’ev [Иван Александрович Перфи́льев] (1882–1942), a specialist in the flora of northern Russia.

Note:—The holotype of T. perfiljevii , see the image in Orlova (1973: 270) and Fig. 5 , was not found in the SYKO herbarium where it was originally reported to be deposited. It was located in LECB later, as a result of a detailed search performed by P. Efimov. Thanks to the generous help and great effort of E. Patova, the curator of SYKO, there is a detailed photographic documentation of the majority of paratypes annotated by N. I. Orlova and deposited in SYKO. The paratypes are not homogeneous taxonomically (and include other members of T. sect. Borealia, and plants belonging to T. sect. Crocea Christiansen (1942: 255) and, perhaps also T. sect. Taraxacum ). Another problem is that the protologue description also includes features of other taxa, and, in particular, the protologue description of achenes is rather doubtful.

Exsiccata:—H. Lindberg, Pl. Finl. Exs., no. 395. – Taraxaca Exs. , no. 551, 552.

Plants ± robust, to ca. 20 cm tall. Plant base without tunic, subglabrous; petioles winged to broadly winged, glabrous to subglabrous, usually purplish. Leaves light mid-green, subglabrous, oblanceolate to broadly oblanceolate in outline, usually 8–12 × 2.5–4 cm, often entire and dentate, most often pinnatilobed, with 2–4 pairs of patent, short, flat-deltoid to flat-triangular lobes, distal margin entire or sparsely dentate; terminal segment usually ± narrower than the rest of the blade, ± triangular, ± entire, with acute basal lobules; interlobes broad, usually entire, not coloured; mid-vein usually suffused purplish, sometimes pale brownish green. Scapes brownish green, usually arachnoid below capitulum, later glabrescent, ± overtopping leaves. Capitulum light yellow to lighter mid-yellow, ca. (3.5–) 4–6 cm wide. Involucre ± dark olivaceous, ± not pruinose, usually (9–) 10–11 mm wide and ± rounded at base. Outer phyllaries (10) 11–14 (15), loosely appressed to erect-patent, not imbricate, narrowly lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, usually 6–10 × 2–3 mm, surface mid-olivaceous-green, border not distinct, whitish green to ± membranous, usually 0.3–0.7 mm wide, margin ± glabrous, apex with dark grey-purple horns usually 1–3 mm long; inner phyllaries 14–18 mm long, with horns. Outer ligules usually striped faintly pink-olivaceous outside, inner ligule teeth yellow or reddish. Stigmas ± yellow, dirty yellow when dry. Pollen absent. Achenes light greyish olivaceous, ca. 4.0–4.5 × 0.9–1.0 mm, body ±densely spinulose in upper 1/3, subabruptly narrowing into subcylindrical cone 0.5–0.8 mm long; beak 9–10 mm long, pappus white, ca. 6 mm long. 2n=32 ( Rousi et al. 1985: 129; Engelskjøn & Knaben 1971, n.v.). – Agamospermous. – Fig. 5 .

Distribution and habitat:— Taraxacum hjeltii is known to occur in the Scandinavian countries ( Norway, Sweden and Finland) and in the Kola Peninsula and Arkhangelsk Region in Russia ( Sennikov 2007). The synonymisation of T. perfiljevii means that T. hjeltii occurs eastwards of the broad region of Fennoscandia. It is included in this paper because some of the paratypes are located at the European border in the northernmost Russia.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Taraxacum hjeltii. Type specimen of T. perfiljevii (LECB 0000399).