NOTES ON- CAREX FLAVA AND ITS ALLIES IV-GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION*

• Main Author: W. Davies
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: British Columbia; Canada; Island C; Iceland; Lapland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.668.1052; http://archive.bsbi.org.uk/Wats3p80.pdf

Detailed information about the world distribution of the C. flava aggregate is rather fragmentary. However, in spite of the group being represented in both hemispheres, as a whole it seems to have circumboreal tendencies and the members were described by M. Raymond in 1951 as amphi-atlantic species. Although they are found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean their European distribution is usually more extensive than their American one (Fig. 1). The British representatives are clearly components of the Northern European flora, and are rare in the Mediterranean region, where C. mairii Coss. & Germ. and C. durieui Steud., two closely allied species, seem to replace them, and are locally abundant. C. flava is a plant with oceanic tendencies, but although it is scattered locally throughout Eurasia it is absent in the Mediterranean region. It occurs in Central Europe, extending to Iceland and Lapland in the North, and is to be found occasionally in the mountainous regions of Scandinavia, the Alps, and the Auvergne in Central France. Its· eastern limits are Russia, where it is fairly common in the North, and in the west Caucasus, while it has been doubtfully recorded from near Lake Baikal. In contrast, however, this species is pronouncedly continental in North America, and extends throughout Canada, as far as British Columbia and Vancouver Island. C. lepidocarpa, unlike the last species, has not a boreal circumpol~r distribution, but is a more abundant species in Central Europe. This sedge, which is very rare in southern