Solidago pacifica

Solidago pacifica Juz. is native to the Far East Russia, Sakhalin Is., northeastern China, N. Korea, and a few locations in northwestern Hokkaido Is., Japan (Juzepczuk 1959). It appears to be a robust relative of S. decurrens; both have small heads compared to S. dahurica. I have only seen limited material of this species. Solidago pacifica was not strongly supported in the multivariate analyses of S. ser. Solidago by Semple et al. (2020) with low levels of a posteriori assignment to S. pacifica.

Solidago dahurica range draft JC

Synonyms: Solidago virgaurea L. var. coreana Nakai, S. decurrens var. coreana (Nakai) Kitamura, and S. virga-aurea var. gigantea Nakai.

No chromosome numbers have been reported under the name S. pacifica.

Futher work is needed to expand sample sizes of S. pacifica in both molecular and morphological studies to determine how best to delimit the species. At this point it appears to be a mixture of atypical specimens of S. decurrens, S. dahurica, and a species intermediate between those two taxa in both morphology and geography.

Solidago pacifica, Teshio, NW Hokkaido, Japan, photo by Yuzu Sakata

Solidago pacifica, Teshio, NW Hokkaido, Japan, photo by Yuzu Sakata. This identification is based on the digital image only. The plant comes from the general area of Hokkaido where the type of S. virgaurea var. gigantea Nakai was collected, and this name is likely a synonym of S. pacifica.

Solidago pacifica, Maack sn (GH)

Solidago pacifica, Maack s.n. (GH), northeastern China

Solidago pacifica, heads, Wang 408 (PE), HeilongJiang Prov., China

Solidago pacifica, phyllaries, Skvortsov s.n. (MO), Vladivostok, Russia

Solidago dahurica range draft JC

Semple, J.C., Y. Ma, L. Tong, and M. Sorour. 2020. A multivariate morphometric analysis of Solidago sect. Solidago and S. sect. Multiradiatae (Asteraceae: Astereae). Phytoneuron 2020-38: 1–59.

revised 15 May 2020 by J.C. Semple