Carex hypsipedos C.B.Clarke, Bot. Jahrb. Syst.

Poindexter, D. B., Escudero, M. & Jiménez-Mejías, P., 2017, A clarification of the name Carex hypsipedos C. B. Clarke (Cyperaceae) and a new name for the South American Carex section Acrocystis taxon, Phytotaxa 291 (4), pp. 287-293 : 290

1. Carex hypsipedos C.B.Clarke, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 37: 518 (1906)

Lectotype (here designated):— PERU. Junin, Tarma, La Oroya, 4300 m, Weberbauer 2617 ( G-00098283 ! Figs. 1–3 ; isolectotype, MOL-00008173!).

Plants small, cespitose. Fertile culms 2.2–3.0 cm tall, curved, shorter than or equaling leaves. Basal sheaths scale-like, straw-colored or reddish tinged, fibrillose. Leaves of flowering shoots 1–3, subcoriaceous, curved, exceeding culms; blades 28–35 × 0.8–2.0 mm, flat or slightly canaliculate, margins scabrous; leaf sheaths glabrous, hyaline; ligules 0.1 mm, rounded, shorter than long, apex obtuse. Vegetative shoots 4–4.5 cm tall; leaves 3–6, similar to those of fertile culms; pseudoculms 8–10 mm tall. Inflorescences 6.1–10 mm long, with 1–3 cauline and 0–2 basal pseudospikelets, these latter emerging from sheaths on long peduncles, usually simple, rarely pseudospikelets branching at base into an additional smaller pseudospikelet, all approximate, overlapping, androgynous; bracts longer than the inflorescence, sheathless, leaf-like or setaceous, 11–20 × 0.2–1 mm. Pseudospikelets androgynous, 3.9–6.1 × 1.7–2.5 mm wide, oblong, 5–10-flowered, erect, on peduncles 7–11 mm, mostly scabrous, when branched, the additional pseudospikelet on a 0.5–3 mm peduncle. Scales 2.5–5.1 × 1.5–1.6 mm, ovate to elliptical, acuminate or mucronate, glabrous, rarely scabrous on the midvein, hyaline or brown tinged, with a (1–)3–5-nerved middle strip excurrent into a 0.1–1.7 mm awn, smooth to slightly scabrous, the pistillate scales surpassing the perigynia. Style jointed with achene; stigmas 2. Anthers not observed. Perigynia 2.5 × 1.2 mm wide, ovoid, gradually tapered into a beak at the apex, abruptly contracted into a subcordate stipitate base, glabrous, membranaceous, stramineous, nerveless or with 1–3 faint nerves; beak about 0.7 mm long, sparsely scaberulent, obliquely truncate or inconspicuously short bidentate. Achenes 1.6 × 1.1 mm, ovate, biconvex, cuneate at base, with the style-base persistent as a 0.3 mm mucro at apex, yellowish brown, very closely enveloped by the perigynium.

Habitat and distribution:—Presumably grasslands, in the high Andes of Peru, at an altitude of around 4300 m.

Phenology:—Unknown.

Etymology:—From the Greek hypsi, high, and perhaps pedos, children, probably in reference to the high altitude at which the type collection was found.

Observations: —The description provided is based upon the single known collection of the species, thus the variation of the taxon in nature is expected to be greater. The systematic relationships of C. hypsipedos are unclear. It displays a morphological resemblance to both, Carex subg. Vignea species and the C. phalaroides group. In the first case, C. hypsipedos would be anomalous both in its peduncled pseudospikelets (sessile in all other subg. Vignea taxa) and because of the presence basal pseudospikelets. In the second case, it does not conform due to its possession of a style with 2 stigmas (all known taxa of the C. phalaroides group possess 3 stigmas). Thus, the species should be considered incertae sedis until new evidence is found.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Type specimens of Carex hypsipedos (Weberbauer 2617, G) left and C. punicola (Weberbauer 2617, B) right.

FIGURE 2. Terminal pseudospikelets. A) Carex hypsipedos (Weberbauer 2617, G). Note androgynous pseudospikelets and concealed perigynia. B) Carex punicola (Weberbauer 2617, B). Note pistillate pseudospikelet left and staminate pseudospikelet right (white arrow indicating base), and exserted perigynia. Scale bar = 5 mm.

FIGURE 3. Perigynia abaxial (left) and adaxial (right) surfaces at 40× magnification of A) Carex hypsipedos (Weberbauer 2617, G) and B) C. punicola (Weberbauer 2617, B). Scale bar = 1mm.