Papaver sect. Pseudopilosa M. Popov ex Günther

Elvebakk, Arve & Bjerke, Jarle W., 2024, Papaver recircumscribed: A review of neighbouring Papaveraceae genera, including Afropapaver nom. et stat. nov. and Oreomecon, a large, Arctic-Alpine genus, PhytoKeys 248, pp. 105-188 : 105-188

7.7. Papaver sect. Pseudopilosa M. Popov ex Günther , Flora 164: 436. 1975

Type species.

Papaver rupifragum Boiss. & Reut. , Pugill. Pl. Afr. Bot. Hispan.: 6. 1852.

Notes.

This section was monographed as including three species with two additional subspecies by Kadereit (1996), showing a wide disjunction between the species pair P. atlanticum (Ball) Coss. and P. rupifragum Boiss & Reut. in Morocco and southern Spain and P. lateritium K. Koch in east Türkiye and Transcaucasus. In a more recent monograph, Aghababyan (2009) also accepted P. oreophilum Rupr. , regarded as an endemic of central parts of the main Caucasus mountain chain. He also accepted P. monanthum Trautv. as an endemic distributed from east Türkiye through the Trans-Caucasian mountains from southern Georgia to northern Armenia, whereas P. lateritium was considered a local endemic of east Türkiye.

Furthermore, Aghababyan (2009) treated P. lisae N. Busch , a local endemic of the Russian Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on the northern side of the central main Caucasus. Popov (1937) considered this species problematic and could not easily assign it to any section. The same conclusion was reached by Kadereit et al. (1997), who cited that it had been proposed that a separate section be formed by an unpublished study. Aghababyan (2009), on the other hand, considered it to be surprisingly similar to the Moroccan species P. atlanticum . It was mapped and treated as Endangered ( EN) by Solomon et al. (2014). Grey-Wilson (2023) recently transferred P. lisae to Oreomecon . However, we follow Aghababyan (2009) and accept it as a species within section Pseudopilosa .

Papaver talyshense Grossh. was considered to be a dubious species by Aghababyan (2009), but was mapped from a single locality in Azerbaijan and regarded as endangered by Solomon et al. (2014). They listed it amongst the country’s top 50 national conservation priorities. The species is accepted by Mikheev (1993), POWO (2023) and Hassler (2023 b). Overall, we conclude that section Pseudopilosae includes eight species and two subspecies.