Taraxacum brevirostre Handel-Mazzetti (1907: 46)

Kirschner, Jan & Štěpánek, Jan, 2017, A revision of Taraxacum sect. Atrata, a dandelion group centred in the Middle Asia, and the problem of Taraxacum brevirostre, Phytotaxa 305 (4), pp. 225-261 : 259

Taraxacum brevirostre Handel-Mazzetti (1907: 46)

Type: —Pamir region, 13–15000 ft, Alcock 17727 ( BM, no. det. 8426, lectotype, fide Soest 1977: 234)

Comment on the lectotypification procedure: —The protologue was compiled from multiple elements belonging to several species. There is no formal obstacle in accepting this typification, therefore. Another fact to be considered is that already Schischkin (1964), when citing type of this name, wrote: [translated from Russian] “Described from the Pamirs. The type [deposited] in London.” This combination (not constituting an acceptable typification) restricts the choice to two specimens, both belonging to the gathering of Alcock 17727, the BM one having been selected as the lectotype by van Soest later, the K duplicate not yet having been located.

Description: —Plants to 7 cm tall. Petiole pale green, narrow, long, unwinged; leaves light green, linear to linear oblanceolate in outline, 4–7 × 0.6–1 cm, subglabrous to very sparsely aranose, usually with 1–3 pairs of short lobules or recurved entire linear-triangular lobes to 1 cm long; terminal lobe ± elongated, linear-triangular, usually 1.5 cm long. Scapes [?] brownish green, sparsely aranose, densely so below capitulum, ± equalling leaves. Outer phyllaries 5–8, blackish green, not imbricate (in a single row of ± equally long phyllaries), linear-lanceolate, (4.1–) 5–7 (–7.5) × 1.5–2.0 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, ± appressed, ± acute, border white to white membranous, evenly narrow along margins of phyllaries, sharply delimited, ca. 0.2–0.3 mm wide, margin glabrous to sparsely minutely ciliate, abaxial surface sparsely aranose in the middle part or subglabrous, apex ± flat or blackish callose, not corniculate; inner phyllaries 1.0– 1.2 cm, blackish green, abaxial surface ± sparsely aranose, phyllaries ± flat below apex. Flowers unknown (not present in the type specimen). Achenes very unripe, pale stramineous-brown, probably over 5.5 mm long, probably very sparsely minutely spinulose above, rostrum thick, ca. 1 mm long but probable to elongate during later development, pappus white to yellowish white, ca. 6 mm long.

Taxonomic notes: —The above data allow the following conclusions: first, T. brevirostre surely is not conspecific with T. minutilobum , secondly, the lectotype plant substantially deviates from the rest of the original material, even to such an extent that it not necessarily belongs to the same section.

We can state that it is not possible to decide about the sectional position of T. brevirostre on the basis of the type material only. It probably represents a taxon marginal to T. sect. Oligantha auct., and remains another mystery associated with the latter section.

As shown below, the type gathering (Alcock 17727) comes from the border region between Tadzhikistan and the Wakhan Corridor, a region very imperfectly explored as regards dandelions. The activities of the joint English and Russian commission delimiting the then Russian / Afghan border were described in Gerard et al. (1897), and an account of collections obtained during the field work is a part of the book. It turns out that Alcock 17727 must have been collected in the summit regions of so called Little Pamir, a boundary range along the northern side of the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan. An exact place is difficult to identify because of the fact that the plant sample numbering in the book differs from the collection numbers on the labels. However, it is probably the only dandelion described on the basis of the material from that range.