3309067 Carex norvegica Retz.
- Retz., Fl. Scand. Prodr.: 179 (1779). Described from Norway.
2n=
56. See subspecies below.
Not included: Two old reports of 2n = 66 may belong to another species (Tanaka 1942b, 1948).
Geography: North American (NE) - amphi-Atlantic - European (N) & Asian Beringian (or amphi-Beringian?).
Notes: Hultén and Fries (1986) mapped Carex norvegica s. str. only from northern and central Europe, easternmost on the Kanin Peninsula, but Malyschev (1990) included localities on the Siberian side of Polar Ural. Other Russian sources (e.g., Sekretareva 1999) have reported it throughout Eurasia as far east as Chukotka. We suspect that most or all reports from east of the Urals are based on misidentied small-grown plants of C. media.
Kalela (1944) accepted three northern races: subsp. norvegica in Europe and with some localities in southern and southeastern Greenland (also accepted as such by Hultén and Fries 1986), subsp. inserrulata in eastern and western Greenland and northeastern North America, and subsp. conicorostrata (see below) in East Chukotka. The morphological differences are small, e.g., for subsp. inserrulata vs. subsp. norvegica mainly the much more dentate margin of the perigynia and the wider hyaline margin of bracts. The few and scattered records from western North America (see, e.g., Hultén and Fries 1986: map 487) should be very critically checked. Murray (2002a) did not accept them.
Higher Taxa
- Carex [3309,genus]