| Summary: | The orchid Coeloglossum viride (L.) Hartm. has a circumboreal distribution and is widespread in the Nordic countries, especially in the boreal and montane regions. Whereas plants from the lowlands are generally slender and have greenish-yellowish flowers, plants from mountain areas tend to be low-growing with fewer, reddish-brown flowers, leading some authors to recognize the latter as a separate subspecies, C. viride subsp. islandica (Lindl.) Kreutz. In course of collecting data for the treatment of the Orchidaceae in the Flora Nordica, we have analysed material of C. viride for plastid microsatellite variation in order to assess the taxonomic justification of subsp. islandica. We found two major groups of haplotypes in C. viride in the Flora Nordica area. The two groups were widespread in both mountain and lowland regions in Scandinavia, but only one of the groups was present in material from Iceland. Accordingly, plastid microsatellite data give no support for the recognition of mountain/Icelandic plants as a separate taxon. Based on the distribution of haplotypes and their relationships, we suggest that the present-day population of C. viride in the Nordic countries originated from populations in refugia close to the Weichselian ice sheet.
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