Carex haematopus Jim.

Jiménez-Mejías, Pedro & Roalson, Eric H., 2016, Two new species of Carex (Cyperaceae) from northern South America, Phytotaxa 266 (1), pp. 21-26 : 23-26

Carex haematopus Jim. -Mejías & E.H.Roalson, sp. nov.

Diagnosis: —This new species is similar to the South American species C. aematorhyncha Desvaux (in Gay 1854: 224) and C. tweedieana Nees (1840: 398) . From C. aematorhyncha the new species is easily distinguished by its smaller utricles (up to 3.5 mm vs. 5–6 mm; see Barros, 1969). From the more robust C. tweedieana it is distinguished by its narrower leaves (up to 2.5 mm wide vs. 3–8 mm wide) and the inflorescence (all the spikes are spread along the upper part of the stems vs. the uppermost male and female spikes congested at the top of the stems) (see Myndel-Pedersen 1968; Hoff Silveira & Longhi-Wagner 2012).

Type:— COLOMBIA. Nariño: Mpio de Pasto, corregimiento del Encanto, Isla La Corota , 2660 m. 1 Nov 1977. O. de Benavides 1197. (Holotype: NY!; isotype material presumably at PSO). Figs. 2–3 .

Perennial; rhizomes unknown, apparently long. Stems 61– 34 cm tall, 1.2– 0.8 mm wide at the middle, smooth, sharply trigonous. Leaves flat or V folded, apparently longer than the stems,> 50 cm long, 2.5– 2 mm wide at the middle, hypostomatic, antrorsely scabrid at the margins, apparently light green; ligule 4– 2.5 mm long, acute to subacute, orangey; sheaths reddish tinged, more intense as lower the leaf is, with the apical opening translucent-orangey on the side opposite to the blade; basal sheaths purple reddish, present at the base of the flowering and sterile shoots, ~ 10 cm long, entire, without blade, splitting into a ladder-fibrosille structure. Inflorescence racemose, 20– 13 cm long, with 2–3 proximal female spikes, and a terminal male spike; lowermost bract longer than the inflorescence, 25– 12 cm long, 2.4– 1.4 mm wide at the middle, flat to V folded, sheathless or with a sheath up to 7 mm long, with a small pair of auricles ~ 0.4 mm on the side opposite to the blade, dark-brown with a hyaline margin; second lowermost bract 8.5– 5.5 mm long, 1– 0.5 mm wide in its middle part, flat to filiform, sheathless, also with similar auricles at its base. Male spike oblanceolate, 3.7– 3 cm long, with a maximum width of 3– 2.5 mm, with about 80 flowers. Lowermost female spikes 17–14 × 5 mm, ovate to lanceolate, with a peduncle 3.5– 3 mm long, with ~20–40 flowers, and a tubular cladoprophyll at its base. Male glumes 4.2–4 × 1.3 mm, narrowly obovoid, reddish brownish with a lighter 1–3-nerved middle longitudinal strip, obtuse to rounded, cuspidate, with a mucro 0.3– 0.1 mm long. Female glumes 2.7–2 × 1.6– 1.2 mm, oblong, acute, purplish-brown, with a lighter 1–3 nerved middle longitudinal strip, excurrent into an antrorsely scabrid 0.6– 0.2 mm mucro. Stigmas 3, purplish, hispidolous. Utricles 3.5–3.2 × 1.4– 1.2 mm, broadly elliptical, with thick walls, reddish-orange, densely pubescent, with nerves marked but hardly visible below the hairs, cuneated at the base, contracted at the apex into a wide 0.8–0.6 × 0.5– 0.4 mm beak, purplish tinged, deeply bifid, with the apical teeth 0.6– 0.3 mm long, divergent, forming a wide sinus from acute to almost rounded; pubescence of whitish hairs about 0.2– 0.1 mm long, more densely distributed towards the apex of the utricle body, being the base and the beak glabrous. Achenes 2.2–1.6 × 0.9– 0.8 mm, elliptical, trigonous, cuneated at the base, sometimes ±contracted forming a short stipe; style strongly lignified, leaving a long cylindrical, 0.2 mm wide remnant at the apex of the achene.

Habitat and distribution: —Known only from the type collection, a population in La Corota island, at Cocha lake, on the eastern side of the southern Colombian Andes, at an altitude of 2660 m. The herbarium label does not provide any indication about ecology. Attending to the typology of the plant and the putatively related species, it may be a plant from moist-wet soils. Future findings in neighboring parts of the Andes may be expected.

Phenology:— Flowers and fruits were collected in November.

Etymology: —The species epithet “ haematopus ” is formed by the ancient Greek “ haemato- ”, blood, and “-pus”, foot. It refers to the purple reddish sheaths present at the base of the flowering and sterile shoots.

Observations: —The hairy utricles with deeply bifid beak, sheathless to shortly sheathing bracts, and achenes with strongly lignifies styles ( Egorova 1999; Ball et al. 2002), place this species within the assemblage of sections Carex - Paludosae -Vesicariae (see Global Carex Group, 2016). The hairy utricles have been the defining character for section Carex , so in a classic sense C. haematopus may be placed in this section. This character seems to be homoplasic, thus not defining a monophyletic section Carex , although in case of merging the three sections cited above within a single one, it would be the priority name.

Kükenthal (1909) cited C. aematorhyncha from Ecuador: “auf Triften bei Otavalo in der Prov. Imbabura (Sodiro 199/64)”. It is the single reported C. aematorhyncha population outside austral South America. In the Southern Cone, the northern limit of C. aematorhyncha seems to be in the Argentinian province of Córdoba (see Flora del Cono Sur checklist at http://www.darwin.edu.ar/Proyectos/FloraArgentina/Generos.asp). The putative Ecuadorian C. aematorhyncha population is about 150 km SW in straight line from the type locality of C. haematopus , in the central Ecuadorian Andes. We requested materials of this collection from the herbaria that hold Sodiro’s material (see Stafleu & Cowan 1976 –1997). Herbaria B, E, G, K, PH, and S confirmed that they do not have such a specimen collected by Sodiro. Further study is necessary to locate the specimen cited by Kükenthal and confirm whether that Ecuadorian locality actually belongs to C. haematopus .

The following artificial key helps to distinguish the South American species of the putative section Carex , and from all the other possible co-occurring species.

1. Inflorescence with more than one spike, at least the uppermost one entirely male; utricles hairy, with a deeply bifid beak; stems elongated and well developed .................................................................................................................................. section Carex (2)

- Without the above combination of characters .....................................................................................................other Carex sections

2. Inflorescence with the uppermost male and female spikes congested at the top of the stems, the male one sessile or subssesile...... ....................................................................................................................................................................................... C. tweedieana

- Inflorescence with the spikes spread along the upper part of the stems, the male one(s) conspicuously peduncled...................... (3)

3. Utricles 5–6 mm long ............................................................................................................................................. C. aematorhyncha

- Utricles up to 3.5 mm long........................................................................................................................................... C. haematopus