| Notes | This taxon has been considered either a northern species, Carex paupercula or C. irrigua, or a northern subsp. irrigua of the South American C. magellanica Lam. described from the Magellan Straits area (type in P) and also reported with 2n = 58. Ball (2002a), as many others, treated the northern plants as C. magellanica subsp. irrigua. The relationships between C. magellanica s. str., subsp. irrigua (C. paupercula), and the related C. limosa are, however, not clear. A diagnostic feature that distinguishes C. limosa and C. paupercula is in the peduncles. They are more or less papillose in C. limosa, nearly smooth in C. paupercula. South American C. magellanica s. str. has, according to Wischmann (in comment), peduncles similar to C. limosa or even more papillose and different from C. paupercula (see illustrations in Wischmann 2000). |