Carex eremitica Paine

Jiménez-Mejías, Pedro, Rodríguez-Palacios, Giovanni E. & Martín-Bravo, Santiago, 2015, Taxonomic notes on some problematic Carex (Cyperaceae) names from SW Asia, Phytotaxa 219 (2), pp. 183-189 : 183-184

Carex eremitica Paine

Carex eremitica Paine (1875: 126) is currently an accepted species presumably distributed in the southeastern Mediterranean basin (Israel-Palestine and Jordan; Govaerts 2014, Jiménez-Mejías & Luceño 2011a). Its taxonomic circumscription and sectional placement have been obscure, and the actual taxonomic status of this species has not been revised to date. It was described in the Natural History section of the Identification of Mount Pisgah ( Paine 1875), based on materials probably collected by Paine himself in Balqa (“Belqa”) plain, today northwestern Jordan.

Paine provided a detailed description of the species, remarking its androgynous spikes congested in a broadly capitate inflorescence (“ spicis in capitulum lato-ovatum spice masculum confertis ”), which allows identifying it as a member of the subgenus Vignea (P. Beauv. ex Lestib) Petermann (1849: 602) . Among other critical characters, linear leaves, dark (“dusky”) purple glumes with hyaline margins, and utricles “almost smooth”, “rhomboidal”, and “cuspidate beaked” were specified. The species was later recorded by Post (1986) in his Flora of Syria, Palestine and Sinai, including a vague description that probably just reproduced Paine’s record, as it was reported only from Balqa. Paine considered this plant to be allied to C. praecox Schreber (1771: 63) , a species included in section Ammoglochin Dumortier (1827: 146) . However, no species from this group is currently known from Jordan. According to checklists ( Govaerts 2014, Jiménez-Mejías & Luceño 2011a) and floristic treatments of neighboring regions ( Egorova 1999, Kukkonen 1998, Nilsson 1986), there are only two Carex species that could potentially match Paine’s description: C. stenophylla Wahlenberg (1803: 24) (section Boernerae V. Krecz. ex Egorova (1965: 70)) or C. pachystylis J. Gay (1838: 101) (section Physodeae Meinshausen (1901: 280 , 312)). This possibility was already considered by Feinbrun-Dothan (1986) in Flora Palaestina , who considered C. stenophylla to be conspecific with C. pachystylis , and listed “? C. eremitica Paine ” under the synonyms list.

We have requested or in situ studied materials assignable to C. eremitica Paine (including materials classified as C. stenophylla and C. pachystylis ) from all herbaria where Paine’s collections have been reported to be deposited (G, GH, K, MICH, NYS, PH; cf. Stafleu & Cowan 1976 –1988). However, all searches of C. eremitica type material were unsuccessful.

Carex pachystylis and C. stenophylla can be difficult to distinguish from each other when ripe fruits are not available, as the main feature that allow discriminating between them are the coriaceous utricles, not easily detachable from the spike in C. stenophylla , while papyraceous and deciduous in C. pachystylis ( Egorova 1999, Kukkonen 1998). Despite Paine (1875) did not give any information about this character, he provided a key clue that allows us to figure out the identity of his species: “almost smooth appressed perigynia”, a character that contrasts with the regularly serrulate beak of C. praecox Schreb. (cf. Luceño et al. 2008), to which Paine compared its C. eremitica . It implies that the utricle beak of C. eremitica was not totally smooth but, at least, very sparsely scabrid. We have studied the scarce available materials of both C. stenophylla and C. pachystylis from Israel-Palestine and Jordan from K and E herbaria (Appendix I). In all the studied samples, C. pachystylis displayed completely smooth utricles, whereas C. stenophylla sometimes had utricles somewhat scabrid at apex. Both characters have been previously recorded for each species in other treatments ( Kukkonen 1998, Nilsson 1986). Thus, we conclude that Paine’s C. eremitica is probably a heterotypic synonym of C. stenophylla , so it should be removed from checklists as an accepted species name.