Bartsia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Orobanchaceae.

Etymology

Bartsia was named after Johann Bartsch (Latinized as Johannes Bartsius, 1709-1738), a botanist of Königsberg. The plant was named for him by his associate Carl Linnaeus, and the genus has been sometimes spelt as Bartschia. Starbia, an anagram of Bartsia, is another genus of Orobanchaceae, synonym of Alectra.

Phylogeny

The phylogeny of the genera of Rhinantheae has been explored using molecular characters. Bartsia belongs to the core Rhinantheae. Bartsia sensu stricto (e.g. B. alpina) is the sister genus to Odontites, Bellardia, Tozzia, Hedbergia, and Euphrasia.

Classification

In 1990, the genus was revised to contain 49 species; 45 of them are endemic to the Andes. The most familiar species might be the well-studied Bartsia alpina, which has a circumboreal distribution, occurring throughout northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere. There are also two afromontane species, restricted to the mountains of northeastern Africa: Bartsia decurva and Bartsia longiflora. These two plants, B. alpina, and the many Andean species are three distinct lineages, making the genus polyphyletic. As a solution to the problem of Bartsia polyphyly, two taxonomic adjustments have been proposed. Accepted species names include the following taxa classified according to geographic distribution groups.

Europe

Mediterranean Basin

Northeastern Africa

Andean South America