Checklist » Brassicaceae » Boechera pauciflora
Boechera pauciflora (Nutt.) Windham & Al-Shehbaz[FNA7, HC2]
Columbia rockcress, few-flowered rockcress, small-flowered rockcress

Publication: Harvard Pap. Bot. 11: 268. 2007.

Origin: Native

Herbarium search: CPNWH

Notes: FNA7: "Morphological evidence suggests that Boechera pauciflora is an apomictic species that arose through hybridization between B. retrofracta and B. sparsiflora. Specimens of B. pauciflora are commonly identified as Arabis holboellii var. pinetorum (= B. pinetorum), a superficially similar species restricted to the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range (see M. D. Windham and I. A. 2007 for detailed comparison).

Arabis elegans A. Nelson (1900), not Tineo & Lojacono (1886) is an illegitimate name, sometimes found in synonymy with Boechera pauciflora."

"Most authors (e.g., R. C. Rollins 1993; R. D. Dorn 2001; S. L. Welsh et al. 2003; N. H. Holmgren 2005b) have treated Boechera pinetorum as a variety of Arabis (Boechera) holboellii. Under this guise, the name has been applied to a vast array of plants collected throughout western North America. This includes a diversity of sexual diploids plus nearly every hybrid containing a genome from B. retrofracta. Based on re-examination of the type collection, we have adopted a much narrower concept of the species. Morphological evidence suggests that B. pinetorum is an apomictic triploid hybrid containing three different genomes, derived from B. rectissima, B. retrofracta, and B. sparsiflora. Plants closely resembling the type of B. pinetorum are confined to the northern Sierra Nevada and adjacent southern Cascades. The majority of collections previously associated with the epithet pinetorum represent B. pauciflora (see M. D. Windham and I. A. Al-Shehbaz 2007 for detailed comparison)."

Last updated 1/15/2022 by David Giblin.

Synonyms & Misapplied Names:
Arabis sparsiflora Nutt. var. columbiana (Macoun) Rollins[HC]
Arabis sparsiflora Nutt. var. subvillosa (S. Watson) Rollins[HC]
Boechera holboellii (Hornem.) Á. Löve & D. Löve, misapplied[FNA7]
Boechera pinetorum (Tidestr.) Windham & Al-Shehbaz, misapplied[FNA7, HC2]