Taxonomic status of Saussurea alpina subsp esthonica (Asteraceae): phenetical analysis

Morphological variation of Saussurea esthonica Baer ex Rupr. and S. alpina (L.) DC. s. str. was studied with different multivariate methods. The most important characters supporting the clustering of the specimens into groups are the shoot hight and characters correlated to it, and hairiness of leav es, while the type of trichomes in both taxa is the same. Hence, these char acters depend very much on ecological conditions and are, therefore, taxono mically not reliable enough. It appeared also that several specimens were m orphologically intermediate between typical representatives of S. esthonica and S. alpina s.str. Therefore, we consider it more appropriate to treat t hese taxa as ecogeographical subspecies: S. alpina subsp, esthonica (Baer e x Rupr.) Kupff. and S. alpina subsp. alpina. Chromosome numbers established for S. alpina subsp. esthonica are 2n = 52, 54.