14. Taraxacum sect. Arctica Dahlstedt, Acta Fl. Sueciae. 1: 37. 1921.
北极蒲公英组 bei ji pu gong ying zu
Plants small, delicate. Leaves usually subglabrous to glabrous; petiole unwinged or rarely narrowly winged; leaf blade undivided or shallowly to deeply lobed, indentation sparse. Outer phyllaries usually few, 8-11(-15), ± blackish green to dark green, broadly ovate to broadly lanceolate, usually less than 5-6 mm, ± appressed to loosely appressed, rarely erect, unbordered or bordered whitish or purplish, margin usually glabrous or rarely ciliate, apex usually corniculate. Ligules yellow, pale yellow, whitish, white, or pinkish. Stigmas discolored. Achene brown, olivaceous brown, blackish, reddish, straw-colored brown, gray, etc., usually 3.5-4.5 mm, not thick; body very sparsely to ± densely spinulose and/or tuberculate above, ± gradually narrowing into a conic to subconic 0.3-0.8 mm cone; beak to 5 mm, thin to slightly thickened. Pappus white.
More than 40 species: tundra of European Arctic, Alps of Europe, mountains of C Asia; one species (endemic) in China.
Taraxacum sect. Arctica has rarely been reported to occur in C Asia or China, and reports (e.g., FRPS 80(2). 1999) did not cover members of the section. However, there are several taxa described from that territory that belong to it on the basis of achene and outer phyllary characters. They are T. junatovii Tzvelev (SW Mongolia), T. heptapotamicum Schischkin and T. atrans Schischkin (C Tian Shan), and T. tzvelevii Schischkin (Tajikistan). Taraxacum alatopetiolum, endemic to China, also belongs to this group.
Taraxacum altaicum Schischkin (Sist. Zametki Mater. Gerb. Krylova Tomsk. Gosud. Univ. Kuybysheva 1949(1-2): 6. 1949), reported as a Chinese species in FRPS (80(2): 37. 1999), is a marginal member of T. sect. Arctica or an intermediate between T. sect. Arctica and T. sect. Borealia. It occurs in the Russian part of the Altai and perhaps might be found in northernmost Xinjiang. However, the description in FRPS does not correspond to the characters of the species, and no Chinese material of this species has been revised by us.
