Carex albida
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Carex lemmonii (Syn .: Carex albida ) is a plant from the genus of sedge ( Carex ) within the family of Cyperaceae (Cyperaceae). It is an extremely rare endemic to California .
description
Vegetative characteristics
Carex lemmonii is a perennial herbaceous plant and reaches heights of 40 to 60 centimeters. It forms short rhizomes . The leaves are 3 to 6 mm wide.
Generative characteristics
Carex lemmonii is a variegated sedge. The inflorescences are over 15 cm high, the deepest internode is 10 to 25 cm high. The terminal spikelet is male at least at the tip. The lateral spikelets are female, at least in the lower part. The spikelets are sometimes more than 15 mm long and mostly stalked less than 1 cm long. The bract of the lowest spikelet is shorter than the whole inflorescence and has a long sheath.
The bracts of the female flowers are white with a green central rib.
The fruit is 3.1 to 4.5 mm long, 1 to 1.6 mm wide and green. The beak is 0.6 to 1.2 mm long and white, often ciliate.
Systematics, distribution, location and endangerment
Carex lemmonii is only found in Sonoma County of the US state California . It is only known from the Pitkin Marshes, which are located in the southern Outer North Coast Ranges. It grows here together with other endangered plants such as Lilium pardalinum subsp. pitkinense .
It was first described as Carex lemmonii in 1884 by W. Boott.
Carex albida was recreated in 1889 by Liberty Hyde Bailey on the basis of a specimen that John Milton Bigelow had collected in 1854 at Santa Rosa Creek in Sonoma County. John T. Howell and John W. Stacey also described this species again in 1937 under the name Carex sonomensis , but Howell recognized that it was the same species.
Carex lemmonii was long believed to be extinct until a single population was discovered in 1987 . Historically, it was known from four other locations, the type locality on Santa Rosa Creek and three other locations in two swamps, all of which are in Sonoma County. The swamp at Santa Rosa Creek was destroyed in the 1960s. Another swamp was polluted with sewage from a canning factory . In the third swamp, one of the two historical populations has not been observed since 1951. The second is on private property and has not been observed since 1976. Due to changes in hydrology , this population may no longer exist.
The only known location of Carex lemmonii in the Pitkin swamps is a Sphagnum bog at altitudes of 45 to 60 meters. The population comprises around 1000 plant specimens and is on private property. Carex lemmonii is endangered by possible changes in the water balance of the swamp and by changes in land use, by a planned wastewater treatment project, by the nearby state highway and also by random events.
supporting documents
- Carex albida - species portrait with photo from the Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office.
- Carex albida in the Jepson Manual . Retrieved April 27, 2008. (Features)
- Fish and Wildlife Service: Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Determination of Endangered Status for Nine Plants From the Grasslands or Mesic Areas of the Central Coast of California , Federal Register , October 22, 1997 (Volume 62, Number 204) (online) , accessed April 27, 2008.