Taraxacum leucocarpum

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 : 77

Taraxacum leucocarpum , a sexual species, possibly linking T. sect. Borealia with T. sect. Arctica

Although there are several species more or less intermediate between T. sect. Arctica and T. sect. Borealia, only one of them is a diploid sexual: T. leucocarpum . Tzvelev & Jurtzev (1984) included it in the latter section (as Ceratophora ) on the basis of its corniculate outer phyllaries of a relatively narrow shape, and we tentatively follow their treatment. Nevertheless, there are several features pointing to T. sect. Arctica: outer phyllaries are few, usually 8–10, with the ± black surface, either without any paler border or the border indistinct, very narrow, achene body is sparsely shortly spinulose, with a very gradual transition in a conical cone, beak (rostrum) is very short, petiole is unwinged, scapes grow from the centre of the leaf rosette. Outer phyllaries, indeed, are usually corniculate, sometimes ± flat, sometimes with distinct horns.

Tzvelev & Jurtzev (1984) reported 2n=16 for T. leucocarpum , and the voucher specimen (LE, no. det. 6078) represents this species. We may hypothesize that sexually reproducing plants of the appearance of T. leucocarpum or T. kolymense might have been at the origin and the diversification of these two sections.