Re: Slovakia Trip (_P.alpina_)

Jan Schlauer (Jan@pbc-ths1.pci.chemie.uni-tuebingen.de)
Tue, 8 Aug 1995 18:35:46 +0100

Dear Ivo and Juerg,

>Of course, you are right. P.alpina has spots only on the central lobe.
>The word 'lateral' should have been omitted. As I mentioned before,
>I couldn't see those P.sp.aff.alpina in flower so I wasn't able to
>judge if it was P.alpina or not.

I have seen _Pinguicula alpina_ in Slovakia (Mala Fatra, Velky Rozsutec) in
July 1994. The corollae were withered already but the plants did obviously
represent this species.

The extent and intensity of the yellow spot on the corolla is subject to
some variation, and there have been attempts to base new taxa on this in
the past, e.g.:

"P.alpina var. bimaculata" WAHLENB. (FL.LAPP.:9, 1812) based on material
from Lappland
"P.flavescens" FLOERKE ex HOPPE (BOT.TASCHENB.:14, 1800) based on material
from Austria

But neither has gained wide acceptance among botanists.

If I may, I would advise anyone aiming at a splitoff from _P.alpina_ proper
to study this species in its whole global range (which is BTW the second
largest in the genus!) and not to forget some literature research. There
have been at least as many rejections as descriptions already.

Kind regards
Jan