| Carex miliaris Michx. | |
| Publ. & Syn. | ?Carex saxatilis var. rhomalea Fernald, Rhodora 3: 50 (1901). Described from Labrador and Quebec (Canada) and from Maine (U.S.A.). |
| Notes | Carex miliaris is a problematic plant found in northeastern North America and Greenland. Hultén and Fries (1986) accepted C. miliaris and considered it closely related to C. rotundata. Egorova (1999) rather suggested affinity to C. saxatilis, and Reznicek and Ford (2002) considered it part of C. saxatilis. Hultén and Fries mapped C. miliaris as sympatric with C. saxatilis in parts of eastern and northeastern Canada and in south-central Greenland. We do not have field experience with it. From herbarium specimens, we find C. miliaris different from C. saxatilis and rather more similar to C. rotundata. Hultén and Fries did not map C. rotundata east of Hudson Bay, whereas Reznicek and Ford did. This might imply that parts of Hultén's C. miliaris were included in Reznicek and Ford's C. rotundata. Some rough characters pointing towards C. rotundata are leaves often filiform-involute (not broadly canaliculate as in C. saxatilis), basal sheaths grey-brown (not purplish), and spikes sessile (not pedunculate) and denser. There are a few chromosome counts at a lower level than in C. saxatilis, but these are from one source only (the Löves). We provisionally accept a northeastern North American (and Greenlandic) species under the name C. miliaris. Mackenzie (1935) synonymized C. saxatilis var. rhomalea with C. miliaris. The differences indicated between "miliaris" and "rhomalea" are mainly quantitative and may be due to one of them ("miliaris") being more northernly distributed and smaller than the other. |
| Chromosomes | 40. - Canada (Manitoba). - Löve and Löve (1981d). Not included: A report of 2n = 40 by Löve (1954b, an untrustworthy account). However, if the Löve reports are confirmed, a difference in chromosome number may support keeping C. miliaris apart from C. rotundata and C. saxatilis. |
| Geography | North American (NE): CAN GRL. |
| Distribution | N = F GW = f D = S E = F CC = s HL = f GE = s [ key ] |
| Parent taxon | Carex L. |
| PAF ID | 3309008 |