Potentille de Chamisso

Potentilla chamissonis Hultén, Bot. Not. 1945: 140, fig. 5b. 1945; P. hookeriana Lehmann subsp. chamissonis (Hultén) Hultén; P. nivea Linnaeus subsp. chamissonis (Hultén) Hiitonen

Petioles with only or almost only long verrucose hairs, sometimes mixed with sparse short and/or soft crisped hairs.

Flowering summer. Cliffs, dry heath tundra, ridge tops; 0–1000 m; Greenland; Man., N.W.T., Nunavut, Que.; Europe.

Reports of subsp. chamissonis from Alaska or Yukon (E. Hultén 1968) have not been confirmed; they are unlikely.

The current use of subsp. chamissonis differs from that of J. Soják (1989, pers. comm.), who included Potentilla chamissonis among the hybrids of P. arenosa and P. nivea. He instead provided the combination P. nivea var. nipharga (Rydberg) Soják for the taxon currently under discussion, using P. nivea in its unconserved sense. He also noted, however, that P. nipharga Rydberg might instead be based on an unstabilized hybrid between P. arenosa and P. crebridens or P. nivea. The latter interpretation is provisionally accepted here; if treated as conspecific with P. arenosa, then P. nipharga would have priority. The name has traditionally been applied in Greenland and northeastern Canada; the type from the Mackenzie River does not conform with how the name has been used.