I pulled out my venerable copy of Hulten's "Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories" (1968) to look some of these ranges up. It has circumboreal distribution maps for each species. Given the date of the book, please excuse any no longer valid names in the next paragraph. Tofieldia (3 spp. in Alaska) extends to the Arctic Ocean coast of both North America and Eurasia, T. pusilla (no tuber) being the most coastal. Toxicoscordon (Zigadenus) is North American only and gets to apparently the higher part of the Brooks Range, well above the Arctic Circle. No North American Veratrum reaches the Arctic, but the Old World V. album does. Allium schoenoprasum (chives) is arctic (how did I forget that one); I recall that one of its native (Dene) names is tl'oo drik, which means something like "indigestion grass." lloydia serotina, which we are told is now a Gagea, reaches the Arctic Ocean coast. There are records for Iris setosa (not bulbous but it has a thick rhizome) above the Arctic Circle. Among the terrestrial orchids, we find Cypripedium guttatum, C. Calceolus ssp. parviflorum, C. passerinum, Amerorchis rotundifolia, Coeloglossum viride (Orchis bracteata), Platanthera hyperborea, P. obtusata, Spiranthes romanzoffiana, Listera borealis, Goodyera repens, Corallorrhiza trifida, Hammarbya paludosa, and Calypso bulbosa. And as mentioned there are quite a few Ranunculus species in the high Arctic, but I haven't examined the tuber situation there. I spent 12 years in interior Alaska and had opportunities to travel around the state. The wealth of plants to be seen is wonderful, though the growing season is so short (and dense with mosquitoes). Best of all, you can see and photograph "high" alpines at elevations where you don't even start breathing hard. And running around among the plants are hundreds of kinds of birds. Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon, USA On 12/18/2018 9:29 PM, Lyndon Penner wrote: > I would guess that Zigadenus (which I think might be Toxicoscordion or > something new now) would be one of the most northerly of bulbs, but I would > also think that some of the very tiny species of Tofieldia would be the > most northerly reaching bulbs in the world. That's just a guess though. How > far north does Veratrum grow? (It grows from a rhizome and not a bulb, but > does that count?) > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…