Senecio vernalis Waldst. & Kit.

Kozhin, Mikhail & Sennikov, Alexander, 2022, New records in non-native vascular plants of Russian Lapland, Biodiversity Data Journal 10, pp. 78166-78166 : 78166

Senecio vernalis Waldst. & Kit.

Senecio vernalis Waldst. & Kit., Descr. Icon. Pl. Hung. 1: 23, t. 24 (1800) - Senecio leucanthemifolius subsp. vernalis (Waldst. & Kit.) Greuter, Willdenowia 33(2): 247 (2003).

Distribution

Native distribution

Europe (temperate), Mediterranean, Caucasus, Iran.

Secondary distribution

Europe (boreal, Atlantic), sometimes elsewhere in the world.

Distribution in neighbouring territories

Rare casual in Karelia, likely introduced during the Second World War ( Kravchenko 2007). Casual alien in the whole of Finland ( Kurtto 1998b).

New record

Russia. Murmansk Region. Pechenga District. 'Lapponia Petsamoensis, Jäniskoski, ent. leirialue', 22.08.1957, C. E. Sonck 6061 (H 761596).

Pathways of introduction

Transport - Contaminant: Contaminated bait.

The species has arrived with forage transported to the place of occurrence by the German army during the Second World War.

Period of introduction

Second World War (1941-1945).

The period of introduction is established through the pathways.

Invasion status

Locally established, persisting. Historical occurrence.

The local population of this annual species persisted for at least 13 years by the time of its discovery. Its current state is unknown, but presumably extinct.

Ecology

Open ground, disturbed ground.

Biology

Annual (or overwintering biennial). Therophyte with taproot.

Notes

The Jäniskoski-Niskakoski area was a territory in Inari Lapland, northern Finland, which was sold to the USSR in 1947 in order to establish a complex of hydropower electric plants for the needs of Soviet nickel mining projects in Petsamo District. The Finnish enterprise Imatran voima was contracted to construct these electric plants and operated a few villages of Finnish construction workers in the territory, including Jäniskoski. Carl Erik Sonck, at that time a medical doctor and amateur botanist, served for the business and collected in this territory in the 1950s ( Kravchenko 2020).

Senecio vernalis in Jäniskoski was collected in the place of a former German military camp, where it was introduced during the Second World War by German military troops in the period of the German occupation in August 1941 - September 1944. Other alien plant species of the same origin were collected in the same place, for example, Erodium cicutarium (L.) L’Hér. ( Mäkinen et al. 2019).