Taraxacum krasnikovii M. S. Ivanova (2011: 9)

Kirschner, Jan & Štěpánek, Jan, 2023, A taxonomic revision of Taraxacum sect. Dissecta, a continental steppe group common in Siberia and adjacent regions of Central Asia, Phytotaxa 590 (1), pp. 1921-1935 : 1921-1935

Taraxacum krasnikovii M. S. Ivanova (2011: 9)

≡ Taraxacum pratense Krasnikov (1997: 291) , nom. illeg.

Type:—[ RUSSIA] the Altai, Ust-Kan District, the Yabagan Pass , 18 Aug 1984, A. Krasnikov & D. Shaulo ( NS, holotype, currently missing) .

The protologue of T. krasnikovii shows a relatively robust plant (to 20–25 cm tall!), with leaves to 15 cm long, glabrous, runcinate; outer phyllaries have a ± narrow shape (oblong-lanceolate), with apex corniculate (horns to 1 mm long!), involucre pale green, and achenes red-brown, medium long, with a relatively long (1–1.2 mm), cylindrical cone.

Both the above names share a serious shortcoming: their type specimens are missing, perhaps even not extant, and cannot be located in the NS herbarium (N. Kovtonyuk, in litt.). The descriptions in the protologues are rather incomplete (posture, border and size of outer phyllaries, stigma colour and pollen presence are missing), and the illustration of T. rupestre does not help in this respect, either. The type localities of both names were visited during the 1988 expedition; we failed to find any material matching the protologue data there. We therefore do not interpret these two names at present, pending new gatherings at the type sites and/or the re-appearance of the type specimens.