Carex lachenalii Schkuhr
Beschr. Abbild. Riedgr. 51. 1801.
Nomenclatural section used by Flora of North America project subgenus Carex, sect. Glareosae G. Don
Carex bipartita All.
Carex lagopina Wahlenb.
Carex leporina L.
Carex tripartita auct. non All.
Carex bipitata var. glareosa (Wahlenb.) Polunin
Carex bipitata var. alpigena (Fernald) Polunin
Plants caespitose, or not caespitose (but loosely clustered). Plants less than 15 cm high, or more than 15 cm high; (8–)10–25(–50) cm high. Roots pallid-brown. Ground level or underground stems horizontal, or not developed horizontally or vertically; compact. Scales present (often inconspicuous). Aerial stems erect; not filiform; triangular in cross section (sometimes with heavy sclerenchyma strands on the angles); glabrous (at 10X, minutely scaberulous at the apex, seen at 40X). Leaves mostly basal. Sheaths greyish brown, or brown. Ligules present; 0.1–0.2 mm long. Blades straight; linear; flat, or revolute (loosely; not strongly keeled); stomata only on abaxial surface; glabrous, or scabrous (scaberulous).
Flowering stems conspicuously taller than the leaves. Leaf or reduced bract closely associated with the base of the inflorescence present; reduced, or scale-like; shorter than the apex of the inflorescence (usually, often inconspicuous); 0.4–1 cm long; with sheath shorter than the blade. Inflorescence spicate; linear, or ovate; (0.5–)1–2.5 cm long; 5–15 mm wide; multispicate; 3–4 spikes; lateral spikes sessile (or almost so; all lateral spikes pistillate above and staminate below). Individual spike(s) erect, or ascending (the lowermost somewhat distant). Terminal spike staminate at the base. Cladoprophyll absent. Staminate flowers inconspicuous. Floral scales shorter than the perigynium in fruit; orange brown (reddish); with margins, and sometimes mid-vein paler in colour than the adjacent area of the scale (margins narrow and scarious); ovate; 2.3–2.6 mm long; 1.6–2.2 mm wide; glabrous. Perianth absent. Anthers 1.2–1.6 mm long. Styles slender, extending beyond the beak. Stigmas per style 2. Fruit surrounded by a perigynium. Perigynia with a slit running down the beak on the abaxial side through which the style protrudes; lanceolate (to ovate); (1.5–)2.5–3(–3.8) mm long; 1.2–1.4 mm wide; contracted at the base into a stipe-like structure; erect or ascending; straw-coloured (towards the base), or golden brown (towards the apex); surface dull; glabrous, or scabrous (with a scaberulous margin towards the beak); faintly nerved; with 2 keels; apices beaked with a long beak (0.75–1 mm long); apex oblique, becoming slightly bidentate. Achenes filling the perigynia; lenticular.
Chromosome information. 2n = 58.
Distribution. Circumpolar. Low arctic (a subarctic, boreal species). Range in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago limited. Uncommon (low arctic, boreal, barely entering the archipelago). Arctic Islands: Baffin, Victoria, Southampton, and Coats (as well as Melville Peninsula).
Ecology and habitat. Substrate along streams (can be found on the slopes of muddy ravines), lake shores (on beach ridges and Salix rafts), tundra (and grassy meadows), slopes; imperfectly drained; calcareous; rock, gravel, silt, clay, till. Not a littoral species (Porsild, 1957).
Notes. Polunin (1940) discusses the name of this taxon that he called Carex bipartita All. He agreed with Gelting (1934) who considered the familiar salt mash C. glareosa as a variety of this species and recognized it as C. bipartita var. glareosa (Wahlenb.) Polunin. However, he admitted that seashore plants and individuals occurring away from the short are referable to a rather variable typical form and that there are many individuals that are intermediate in such characters as the width of the leaves, thickness and rigidity of the culms and shape of the inflorescence. The recognition of var. glareosa has not been widely taken up and neither has recognition of var. amphigena (Fernald) Polunin that was distinguished from the typical species on the shape and size of the perigynia.
Illustrations. • Close-up of inflorescence. Spikes oblong or linear-cylindrical. Terminal and lateral spikes staminate at the base. Note the two anthers on right hand side of the terminal spike, and anthers in the glue on the lateral spike. CAN 549943. • Arctic Island distribution.
Cite this publication as: Aiken, S.G., Boles, R.L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1999 onwards. ‘Cyperaceae of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval.’ Version: 6th November 2000. http://http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/. Dallwitz (1980) and Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000) should also be cited (see References).
