Carex nigra subsp. transcaucasica

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 : 186

3) Carex nigra subsp. transcaucasica in Iran and Iraq

Following a phytogeographical criterion, most authors have regarded southwestern Asian populations of C. nigra -like plants outside Turkey as belonging to C. orbicularis .

For Iran, Assadi (1988) reported the presence of C. nigra in Azerbaijan province (Arasbaran Protected Area). However, Amini-Rad (2011) rejected this record and considered it to be C. orbicularis . Kukkonen (1998) neither included Assadi’s record nor listed C. nigra in his Flora Iranica treatment. For Iraq, Hopper (1985) only listed two species of the section Phacocystis : C. elata Allioni (1785: 272) and C. orbicularis . The records of C. elata from Iraq probably correspond to C. kurdica (cf. Jiménez-Mejías et al., 2014). For C. orbicularis, Hopper (1985) noted that previous authors reported some records to be C. orbicularis and others C. nigra (as C. dacica Heuffel (1835: 247) , a name formerly misapplied to C. nigra (cf. Egorova, 1999)). However, she preferred to be synthetic and considered all them as C. orbicularis . After the molecular confirmation of Iranian specimens from Azerbaijan province as C. nigra (Jiménez-Mejías et al., 2013) , we carefully examined C. nigra / C. orbicularis -like materials from the Middle East following Egorova (1999) and Jiménez-Mejías et al. (2014). The populations listed in Appendix I match the variability of C. nigra , in particular subsp. transcaucasica . The following key, modified from both treatments, readily allows the distinction of C. orbicularis and C. nigra . For the distinction between these two taxa and the other species from section Phacocystis co-occurring in this area, the reader must be referred to Jiménez-Mejías et al. (2014).

1. Utricles faintly nerved to nerveless, very rarely nerved, orbicular to suborbicular in outline, rounded at the top and abruptly contracted into a short beak, biconvex to inflated-biconvex, arranged from erect-ascendent to patent in the spike; leaves hypostomatic, more rarely amphistomatic ............................................................................................................................................ C. orbicularis

- Utricles conspicuously nerved, rarely faintly nerved, ovate to elliptic-obovoid in outline, cuneate at the top and gradually attenuated into a short beak, narrowly biconvex to plano-convex, arranged erect-ascendent in the spike; leaves epistomatic or amphistomatic, very rarely hypostomatic ............................................................................................................................................. C. nigra

To sum up, the study of materials allows us to confirm the presence of C. nigra in Iran, and spread its range further south to Iraq. Conversely, for C. orbicularis , the Iraqi records must be considered doubtful and needed of confirmation.