Taraxacum anadyrense Nakai & Koidzumi

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 : 114-115

47. Taraxacum anadyrense Nakai & Koidzumi in Koidzumi (1936a: 144)

Type:—[ RUSSIA, Chukotka Autonomous Region] Anadyr, St. Nicholas , 22 Jul 1922, K. Igawa ( TI, no. det. 15889, holotype) .

Etymology:—Anadyr, a town in the Anadyr Bay, Chukotka, or a river of the same name.

= Taraxacum leptoglossum Haglund (1946: 346) , syn. nov.

Type:—[ USA, Alaska] Kodiak Island, vicinity of Karluk , 6 Jul 1903, C. L. Rutter 197 ( US 119855, photo!, holotype; S 12-27597 !, photo of the holotype and unripe achenes, isotype; NY 546798 , photo!, isotype) .

Plants small, 9–10 cm tall. Petiole winged (narrowly so in the innermost leaves), sometimes purplish. Leaves mid-green, unspotted, very narrowly oblong in outline, ca. 5–6 × 0.7–1.2 cm, pinnatilobed, with 2–3 pairs of obtuse or subacute, subrecurved deltoid-triangular segments with entire margins, terminal segment usually ± obtuse, entire, mid-vein green or slightly purplish. Scapes brownish green, later suffused reddish, ± arachnoid, often yellowish arachnoid below capitulum, overtopping leaves. Capitulum yellow, ca. 2.5–3 cm wide. Involucre olivaceous-green to slightly greyish olivaceous-green, ca. 8 mm wide and rounded at base. Outer phyllaries relatively few, (8) 9–12 (13), appressed, subimbricate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, usually 5–6 (–7) × 2.1–3.3 mm, dark grey-green or blackish green, often with a black middle line, border distinct, sharply delimited, whitish, 0.3–0.6 mm wide, apex usually black corniculate, with cornicles ca. 0.5 mm long; inner phyllaries ca. 13–15 mm long, often coalescing, apex darker, ± flat or corniculate. Outer ligules flat, striped faintly greyish outside, teeth purplish to dirty yellow. Stigmas dark discoloured. Pollen present, pollen grains irregular in size. Achenes (immature) light greyish stramineous-brown, 3.5–4.0 × ca. 1.0 mm, ± body densely shortly spinulose in upper 1/3, ± subabruptly narrowing in a conical cone 0.3–0.4 mm long; beak too immature, pappus white, ca. 6 mm long. – Agamospermous. – Fig. 78 .

Diagnostic notes:—The original material ( Fig. 78 ) of T. anadyrense consists of a single, very well developed plant (and two separate flower heads); the achenes are lacking. The holotype of T. leptoglossum matches T. anadyrense in all important characters, and the only difference is a less dark colour of the outer phyllaries in the former. The achene description was compiled according to the original material of T. leptoglossum and the data and figures in the protologue.

The diagnostic characters of T. anadyrense include dark, subimbricate, relatively short outer phyllaries with a sharply delimited pale border, regularly pinnatilobed leaves with subrecurved, deltoid-triangular, entire lateral segments, and achenes with a short, conical cone.

Distribution:—Known from the Anadyr region in Chukotka, and from Kodiak, Alaska.

Figures

FIGURE 78. Taraxacum anadyrense. General habit (TI, no. det. 15889, holotype); above: a detail of the same specimen. Scale bar (general habit) = 2 cm; scale bar (the detail) = 5 mm.