Carex nigra

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 : 184-185

Carex nigra in SW Asia east of Anatolia

Carex nigra belongs to the taxonomically problematic section Phacocystis Dumortier (1827: 146) . The taxonomy of C. nigra and its allies has been a complicate issue, mainly due to its wide morphological variability, that has led to the description of many taxa below species level but also at species rank (see Chater (1980) for a detailed commented list). One of the most outstanding examples has been the recognition of the tussock-forming plants as a separate species ( C. juncella (Fries) Th. Fries (1857: 207)) , by caricologists as prominent as Egorova (1999). It is a growthform that strikingly contrasts with the typical rhizome-creeping plants. However, recent studies have shown that these plants are genetically indistinguishable from C. nigra s.s. and that tussock-forming growth forms may be induced by environmental conditions ( Jiménez-Mejías et al., 2012; Košnar et al., 2013).

In the Middle East, C. nigra has been confused with C. orbicularis , and two additional taxa ( C. transcaucasica Egor. and C. orbicularis subsp. kotschyana var. caucasica Ö. Nilsson ) were described to accommodate plants considered to be problematic by regional authors.