Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago
| Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago | |
English: Fries' pussy-toes.
Asteraceae (Compositae), Daisy family.
Published in Svensk. Bot. Tidskr. 22: 416. 1928.
Type: Northern Siberia: Kolyma River.
Synonymy. Antennaria alpina (L.) Gaertn. var. friesiana Trautv. Trudy, Imp. S. Peterburgsk Bot. Sada. 6: 24. 1878.
Antennaria labradorica Nutt., Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. N.S. 7: 406. 1841.
Antennaria ekmaniana A.E. Porsild, Sargentia 4: 69. 1943.
Vegetative morphology. Plants 3.5–12.5(–20) cm high (DAO 573388); perennial herbs; caespitose. Only fibrous roots present (fibrous roots arising from the underground stem). Ground level or underground stems horizontal; compact (0.5–1 cm long); 2–3 mm wide (often obscured by marcescent leaves). Caudex present (a small zone at ground level). Aerial stems developed; erect. Leaves mainly basal, or basal in a rosette; alternate; marcescent. Petioles absent. Leaf blade bases truncate, or attenuate. Blades 10–25 mm long, 2–4 mm wide, spreading, oblanceolate or spatulate, flat, appearing single-veined or with inconspicuous veins. Blade adaxial surface hairy, hairs pubescent, hairs simple, hairs sparse to dense (glabrescent), hairs grey (or greenish). Blade abaxial surface with glandular hairs (purple), hairy, hairs tomentose, hairs very dense, hairs white, hairs straight or curved or wavy, hairs appressed. Blade margins entire; apices acute (with flag-tip).
Reproductive morphology. Plants dioecious (male plants unknown). Flowering stems solitary; with leaves (that are 7–14 mm long with prominent flags). Flowering stems hairy. Flowering stems villous. Flowering stem hairs simple; white or translucent (long simple hairs), or brown (short glandular hairs, these sometimes purplish, sometimes obscure in Canadian Arctic specimens); glandular hairs present (purple). Inflorescences of several flowering heads (usually 2–6 heads in corymbose arrays); globose or sub-globose; 1–5 cm long; 15–30 mm wide. Flowering heads 8–10 mm deep; 8–10(–12) mm wide; with only disc florets. Pedicels subtending flowering heads (short); with non-glandular hairs. Involucral bracts present (also flowering stem leaves at the base of each capitulum and bracts leaves on the pedicel subtending the capitulum that tend to merge in characteristics). Number of rows 2–3. Outer involucral bracts mostly green (lower dark brown, black, or olivaceous; upper part light brown); lying adjacent to the flowers; lanceolate (with pale greenish brown attenuate tips that often dry golden brown); 5–7 mm high; 1–1.5 mm wide; glabrous (towards the apex), or sparsely hairy (woolly at the base; bract leaves subtending flowering heads are densely woolly); without glandular hairs. Inner involucral bracts lanceolate; 7–8 mm high; 1.1–1.3 mm wide; margins wide, scarious for at least one quarter of the bract (upper half); apex entire (not flag-like). Flowers radially symmetrical (actinomorphic); unisexual. Sepals represented by a pappus. Pappus with a single row of hairs; whitish. Disc florets pappus 4–5.5 mm long. Petals conventional; fused; 5; white (flowering head in total appearing white), or pink, or purple, or brown (small petals); 3.6–3.8 mm long. Corolla tubular; 5-lobed. Stamens absent. Ovary inferior; carpels 2; syncarpous. Styles 1; 4–4.2 mm long. Stigmas per ovary 2. Placentation basal. Ovules per ovary 1. Fruit sessile; dry; cypselas; yellowish, or brown; 1–2 mm long; 0.4–1 mm wide; glabrous (or slightly papillose); surface venation ribbed; indehiscent. Seeds 1.
Chromosome information. 2n = 28, or 56, or 60.
2n (4x) = 28. Chmielewski and Chinnappa (1990);
2n (8x) = 56. Chmielewski and Chinnappa (1990);
2n = about 60. Zhukova (1982, northeastern Asia);
2n (9x)= 63. Zhukova (1982, northeastern Asia).
2n (10x) = more than 70. Zhukova (1982, northeastern Asia); Chmielewski and Chinnappa (1990);
2n = about 80. Zhukova (1982, northeastern Asia).
2n (12x) = 84. Zhukova (1969, northeastern Asia; 1980, southern Chukotka); Zhukova and Petrovsky (1976 western Chukotka, 2n = about 84); Petrovsky and Zhukova (1981, Wrangel Island).
Ploidy levels recorded 4x, 8x, 9x, 10x, and 12x.
Ecology and habitat. Substrates: imperfectly drained moist areas, dry, moderately well-drained areas; gravel, sand; with low organic content, with high organic content (DAO 748015); non-calcareous. Turfy hummocks, sandy flats with grasses, occasional on rich lower ledges of cliffs (DAO 573382), rock crevices, common in churned up manured sandy soil around ground squirrel burrows (DAO 748018), in dry exposed heath and on rock ledges, in very shallow soil over igneous boulders with Cassiope and mosses.
North American distribution. Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories Islands, continental Northwest Territories, Nunavut Islands, continental Nunavut, northern Quebec, Labrador. Range in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago limited. Uncommon. Arctic. Arctic islands: Baffin, Devon, Ellesmere, Axel Heiberg, Parry islands, Banks, Victoria, Southampton (Boothia and Melville peninsulas).
Northern hemisphere distribution. Amphi-Beringian (broadly). Kharaulakh, Yana–Kolyma, West Chukotka, Wrangel Island, South Chukotka, East Chukotka, West Alaska, North Alaska – Yukon, Central Canada, Labrador – Hudson Bay, Ellesmere Land – Peary Land, West Greenland.
General notes. Hultén (1968b) recognised three subspecies within A. friesiana s.l. (subsp. friesiana, subsp. alaskana (Malte) Hultén, and subsp. compacta (Malte) Hultén). Hultén's (1968b) circumscription of A. friesiana subsp. compacta included A. densifolia A.E. Porsild and A. neoalaskana A.E. Porsild.
Bayer and Stebbins (1993) also recognised three subspecies: A. friesiana subsp. friesiana, subsp. alaskana, and subsp. neoalaskana (A.E. Porsild) Bayer and Stebbins, indicating that the latter two subspecies are the dioecious (sexual) phase of the former gynoecious (asexual) form. Bayer (1991) considered that these sexual populations (subsp. alaskana and subsp. neoalaskana) are restricted to Alaska and cordilleran areas of the northern Yukon and adjacent Northwest territories, whereas the asexual phase (subsp. friesiana) is "almost circumpolar", as this phase occurs from the central and eastern Siberian plateau eastward across the North American arctic to Greenland according to Bayer (1991). However, Elven et al. (2003) record a gap of more than 140°C of latitude between Greenland and the Lena River where the taxon is not recorded.
Bayer's (1993) work (based on field work and morphological studies of herbarium specimens) concluded that Hultén's A. friesiana subsp. compacta contained at least three incongruous entities that are not related to the other two subspecies of A. friesiana. Chmielewski (1997) assigned A. compacta as a subspecies to A. media.
Chmielewski (1994), in a phenetic analysis of the morphological variation in the polyploid complex, independent of a knowledge of chromosome number and reproductive biology, concluded that the rank of subspecies was supported by the analyses for A. friesiana subsp. friesiana and A. friesiana subsp. alaskana. The subspecies were found to differ with respect to the length of the involucre, inner phyllary length, pappus length, corolla length (the latter subspecies typically smaller than the former), chromosome number, reproductive biology, and in part provenance. Chmielewski (1994) stated that A. frieseana subsp. friesiana is an agamospermous polyploid, represented by pentaploid (2n = 70) and hexaploid (2n = 84) cytotypes. Antennaria friesiana subsp. alaskana is a sexual, probably partially agamospermous, tetraploid cytotype, and either diploid (2n = 28) or tetraploid (2n = 56).
Elven et al. (2003) noted that geographically this is the major entity of Section Alpinae and occurs from the Lena area throughout northeastern Asia and North America to western Greenland, i.e., through the entire range of the aggregate. Elven and Petrovsky in Elven et al. (2005) considered that the recognition of three subspecies is now well supported in their circumpolar range as well. The two sexuals ('alaskana' and 'neoalaskana') are consistently different, as both also are from agamospermic 'friesiana' s.s. This is now supported by all workers on this group.
Illustrations. • Habitat. Plants with blue-green leaves and small white flowering heads growing near the scale bar on a dry gravel slope. Nunavut, Baffin Island, confluence of Livingstone and Soper River. Aiken and Iles 02–049. CAN. Scale bar in cm. • Close-up of leaves. Leaves with pointed tips and almost glabrous upper surfaces. Aiken and Iles 02–049. CAN. • Flowering stem leaves with flags. Leaves on the flowering stem have brown flags on the tips. Aiken and Iles 02–049. CAN. Scale bar in cm. • Arctic Island Distribution.
This publication is available on the internet (posted May 2011) and on CD-ROM (published in 2007). These versions are identical in content, except that the errata page for CD-ROM is accessible on the main index page of the web version.
Recommended citation for the web-based version of this publication: Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., Consaul, L.L., McJannet, C.L., Boles, R.L., Argus, G.W., Gillett, J.M., Scott, P.J., Elven, R., LeBlanc, M.C., Gillespie, L.J., Brysting, A.K., Solstad, H., and Harris, J.G. 2007. Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. NRC Research Press, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa. http://nature.ca/aaflora/data, accessed on DATE.
Recommended citation for the CD-ROM version of this publication: Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., Consaul, L.L., McJannet, C.L., Boles, R.L., Argus, G.W., Gillett, J.M., Scott, P.J., Elven, R., LeBlanc, M.C., Gillespie, L.J., Brysting, A.K., Solstad, H., and Harris, J.G. 2007. Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. [CD-ROM] NRC Research Press, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa.
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