Panarctic Flora

3309068-072 The Temnemis complex

Notes: The Temnemis complex of mainly seashore species (species 68-72) may be one large 'biological species' that produces partially fertile hybrids almost everywhere they meet. The hybridization also involves all or nearly all species of the Phacocystis complex that they come in contact with, but these hybrids (see species 73-74) are slightly less common because the Temnemis species mostly are halophytes, the Phacocystis species usually not. The Temnemis (and Phacocystis) species seem to keep apart mainly by inhabiting ecologically and geographically different parts of seashores, mires, and swamps, combined with reduced fertility in the majority of the hybrids.

Five taxa of the Temnemis complex are found along the North Atlantic coasts: Carex lyngbyei, C. paleacea, C. salina, C. subspathacea, and an Icelandic and possibly Greenlandic plant we here assign to C. ramenskii. In an investigation of reproduction and cytology in eastern Canada, Cayouette and Morisset (1985) found regular meiosis and high pollen fertility in C. paleacea (and in the Phacocystis species of C. nigra and C. aquatilis), irregular meiosis and reduced pollen fertility in C. salina and C. recta which they proposed to be stabilized hybrid species, the former between two Temnemis species, the latter between species of Temnemis and Phacocystis. North Europeans have until recently not followed this interpretation of C. salina, but see below. Three taxa of the Temnemis complex are reported from the North Pacific regions where the complex is less well studied: C. lyngbyei, C. ramenskii, and C. subspathacea.