Dandelions in Central Asia: A taxonomic revision of Taraxacum section Leucantha.

A taxonomic revision of Taraxacum sect. Leucantha Soest is presented. Species in this section are mainly characterized by the pale bordered and appressed outer involucral bracts, achenes covered with subsparse coarse spinules, thick cylindrical cone and a relatively short, thicker rostrum, and often white or pale yellowish flowers. They occur in subsaline wet meadows and steppe depressions over a large area including Mongolia, South Siberia, NE, N and W China, Tibet, the Western Himalayas, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan and E and NE Kazakhstan. Eighteen species are recognized, seven of them described as new: Taraxacum niveum from the Altai and Dzhungaria, T. candidatum centred in Ladakh, Tadzhikistan and Kyrgyzstan, T. album from Kyrgyzstan, T. flavidum from Mongolia and Transbaikalia, T. occultum from East Mongolia, T. virgineum from Ladakh, India, and T. inimitabile from Gobi-Altai, Mongolia. An analysis of syntypes of the names T. dealbatum Hand.-Mazz. and T. sinense Dahlstedt is given. For the safe interpretation of the name T. luridum, epitype was designated. All the species are agamospermous but sexuality and diploidy is documented for a few Transbaikalian plants of the section Leucantha.