Potentilla L. sect.Rivales Wolf and related taxa in the Baltic states

Morphological variation ofPotentilla norvegica L.,P. heidenreichii Zimmeter andP. supina L. usually treated within the sectionRivales Wolf,P. recta L. (sect.Rectae Wolf),P. canescens Bess.,P. argentea L. s.l.,P. collina Wibel (sect.Argenteae Wolf) andP. goldbachii Rupr. (sect.Chrysanthae Wolf) was studied using multivariate statistical methods. According to k-means clustering,P. canescens stands closer toP. heidenreichii of the sect.Rivales than toP. argentea. P. collina, the other representative of sect.Argenteae, is not connected withP. canescens at all. Therefore,P. canescens should belong to sect.Rivales and not to sect.Argenteae. InPotentilla argentea s.l.,P. impolita Wahlenb.,P. argentea L. var.argentea, var.decumbens (Jord.)Lehm., var.demissa (Jord.) Lehm., var.grandiceps (Zimmeter) Rouy etE.G. Camus and var.tenerrima (Velen.) Wolf were identified.P. impolita specimens did not cluster out into a separate cluster as didP. collina, P. canescens andP. heidenreichii, but formed mixed clusters with different varieties ofP. argentea s.str. Therefore,P. impolita is not worthy of the rank of species and evidently not even that of subspecies, and should be treated as a variety—P. argentea var.incanescens (Opiz) Focke.