The Ranunculi of the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain and the Brooks Range

Abstract

Until the last five years little has been known of the flora of the Alaskan Arctic 'Coastal Plain, and the writer has seen only one Ranunculus specimen collected in the Brooks Range* prior to 1946. Few of the early collections were made by professional botanists. Nearly all the few specimens are those of members of exploring expeditions not concerned primarily with this fielfd of study, and they record only the existence of species at the few points at whiclh ships stop-nothing of local variability within species. Before 1946 only about twenty collections of Ranunculus were knoNvn from an area the size of California or of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. These specimens represent only four species, and they give no indication of geographical distribution because nearly all came from Barrow, Wainwright, or Cape Lishburne. Since 1946 half a dozen collectors have visited part of the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain or the Brooks Range, particularly the United States Navy Petroleum Reserve No. 4 which covers most of the area. Thirteen species of Ranunculus are known now to occur on the Coastal Plain and/or in the Brooks Range, according to habitat tolerances. Much of the knowledge of inland distribution of species is derived from the collections of Mr. Lloyd A. Spetzman along the north side of the Brooks Range and of the late Mr. Louis B. Jordal at points on the south side of the same range. Dr. Ira L. Wiggins, Director of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow and Director of the Natural History Museum of Stanford University, California, and his assistants Mr. Henry J. Thompson and Mr. John H. Thomas of Stanford University have added materially to the knowledge of distribution of plants in the Point Barrow Region as a result of their extended excursions into the tundra along and awav from the immediate coast. Through their kindness, in the summer of 1950 the writer was able to visit various points in the same region and to study more intensively in the field the characters occurring from individual to individual of all the known species of Ranunculus occurring in the Point Barrow Region. These studies were continued in the summer of 1952. The chief fea-tures of this paper are 1) a summary of the known species and their distribution in far northern Alaska as a result of the collections of others and the field studies of the writer and 2) data bearing on the interrelationships of species and their degree of distinctness from each other resulting from field study in the American and European Arctic by the writer. As a result state-