The genus Camelina (Cruciferae) in Mongolia and China reviewed on the basis of herbarium materials from the Institute of General and Experimental Biology of the ASM (UBA) and the Komarov Botanical Institute (LE) APPLIED , GENETICS AND BREEDING

contain materials of 3 species from Mongolia ( C. caucasica (Sinsk.) Vass., C. sativa (L.) Crantz, C. sylvestris Wallr.) and 4 from China ( C. sativa , C. linicola Schimp. et Spenn., C. microcarpa Andrz., C. sylvestris ).


The genus Camelina (Cruciferae) in Mongolia and China reviewed on the basis of herbarium materials from the Institute of General and Experimental Biology of the ASM (UBA) and the Komarov Botanical Institute (LE)
To discuss the species diversity within the genus Camelina Crantz in Mongolia and China, we studied not very large herbarium holding at the Institute of General and Experimental Biology of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia (UBA, Ulaanbaatar) and the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LE, St. Petersburg). At the same time, these collections made it possible to clarify the diversity of Camelina spp. in the Mongolian and Chinese florae. Some gaps were filled in the species diversity of Mongolia. The most recent regional revision of cruciferous plants in Mongolia (German, 2015) did not cite C. caucasica (Sinsk.) Vass. The diversity of Camelina spp. in the Chinese vegetation was doubled: previously, only two species had been recognized (Zhou et al., 2001).
Supplements to the Camelina diversity in East Asia are primarily associated with the still remaining ignorance about the existing morphological boundaries between the pairs of species: C. microcarpa Andrz. with C. sylvestris Wallr., and C. sativa (L.) Crantz with C. linicola Schimp. et Spenn., although they are clearly obvious not only from the type specimens.
The diversity of the genus Camelina is not too convincingly exposed in the discussions on geographical and phylogenetic data contained in a quite recent publication by Žerdoner Čalasan et al. (2019). The authors expressly emphasized the rather strange variations in C. microcarpa (as they understood them): for example, 4 ribotypes (two western and two eastern), and C. sativa which was represented in the said publication by two ribotypes. In fact, those studies showed a clearly manifested, geographically and phylogenetically determined richness of species within C. microcarpa aggr., once described as ser. Microcarpae, and later recognized as a section (Dorofeyev, 1996;. No less obvious is the species diversity of C. sativa aggr. (ser. Camelina) (Dorofeyev, 1996). It is impossible not to notice this fact while scrutinizing the cited publication. A drawback in the study by the previous authors is that C. rumelica Velen. was incorporated into the diversity of C. microcarpa, which is detrimental to the true understanding of the diversity of the genus in question and does not allow the readers to see and evaluate its general structure.
The genus Camelina is not natural for Mongolia or China. This fact is obvious not only from the records on the herbarium sheets at LE and UBA, but also from the results of our long-term observations in Siberia and Mongolia. Anthropogenically introduced adventive plants, scantily represented in both herbaria at Ulaanbaatar and St. Petersburg, still reflect the existing, albeit small, diversity of species whose morphological information is not yet available in old or new publications containing reviews of these cruciferous plants in these two countries (Grubov, 1982;Zhou et al., 2001;German, 2009;2015;etc.).
It was established on the basis of herbarium materials reviewed in the said publication that the Camelina diversity in East and Central Asia comprises 5 species: C. microcarpa, C. sylvestris, C. sativa, C. linicola and C. caucasica. The first two are not very frequent elements of the segetal flora. Their renewal and existence in plant communities take place in a natural way.
The remaining three species (cultivars) cannot independently and constantly reproduce themselves in the mentioned florae. Over time, their presence in these florae, due to natural reasons, declines, and without proper concomitant agricultural practices they can die out within a few years. These processes are quite evident, for example, in Eastern Europe, where in the late 20th century Camelina had not been planted as an oilseed crop for decades.
The morphological features that distinguish the discussed species are quite obvious, although they are constantly ignored (Žerdoner Čalasan et al., 2019). For example, C. microcarpa and C. sylvestris have relatively small pearshaped fruits. In the first species, the top of the fruit is succise, in the second one it is attenuate.
Unlike the previous species, the fruit of C. sativa is 1.5 times larger than theirs and slightly attenuated at the top. C. caucasica has a distinctive fruit, depressed at the sides, deformed from side of the frame, slightly attenuated from above. This feature in the fruit structure evolved, on the one hand, in the process of the fruit's asymmetric development, and on the other, as a result of targeted selection of thinvalve forms, most convenient for threshing. In contrast to C. caucasica, the fruit of C. linicola is characterized by a markedly blunted tip of the silicle.