Carex maritima
{{Short description|Species of plant}}
{{Speciesbox
|image=Carex maritima.JPG
|image_caption=Seedheads
|genus=Carex
|species=maritima
|authority=GunnerusFl. Norveg. 2: 131 (1776)
|synonyms={{Collapsible list|
- Carex amphilogos K.Koch
- Carex banata Sm.
- Carex bucculenta V.I.Krecz.
- Carex camptotropa V.I.Krecz.
- Carex incurva Lightf.
- Carex incurva var. chartacea Kük.
- Carex incurva f. erecta O.Lang
- Carex incurva var. inflata Simmons
- Carex incurva var. melanocystis (É.Desv.) Kük.
- Carex incurva var. misera (Kük.) Kük.
- Carex incurva f. pallens Kük.
- Carex jucunda V.I.Krecz.
- Carex juncifolia All.
- Carex maritima f. inflata (Simmons) Polunin
- Carex maritima var. melanocystis (É.Desv.) Fernald
- Carex maritima var. misera (Kük.) Fernald
- Carex maritima subsp. setina (Christ) T.V.Egorova
- Carex maritima var. setina (Christ) Fernald
- Carex maritima subsp. yukonensis A.E.Porsild
- Carex melanocystis É.Desv.
- Carex melanocystis var. misera Kük.
- Carex misera Phil.
- Carex oligantha Phil.
- Carex orthocaula V.I.Krecz.
- Carex psammogaea Steud.
- Carex psychroluta V.I.Krecz.
- Carex setina (Christ) V.I.Krecz.
- Carex stenophylla L.Thienem. ex Boott
- Carex transmarina V.I.Krecz.
- Caricina incurva (Lightf.) St.-Lag.
- Olotrema juncifolia (All.) Raf.
- Rhaptocalymna incurva (Lightf.) Fedde & J.Schust.
- Vignea incurva (Lightf.) Rchb.
- Vignea maritima (Gunnerus) Rchb.
- Vignea maritima subsp. setina (Christ) Soják
}}}}
Carex maritima, called the curved sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Carex, with a bipolar distribution in mountains and cold regions.{{cite web |url=http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:300885-1 |title=Carex maritima Gunnerus |author= |date=2017 |website=Plants of the World Online |publisher=Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |access-date=21 January 2021 }}{{cite web |title=Carex maritima Gunnerus curved sedge |url=https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/162167/i-Carex-maritima-i-Gunnerus/Details |publisher=The Royal Horticultural Society |access-date=21 January 2021 }} It dispersed in the Pleistocene from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere.
Description
Carex maritima forms mats, connected by a branched system of brown, scaly rhizomes. From these rise evenly-spaced aerial shoots, most of which are vegetative, with merely a tuft of short leaves. The leaves are elongate, folded or rolled, up to {{convert|8|cm|0|abbr=on}} long with serrate margins and usually tinged with bluish-grey. At intervals, there are reproductive shoots with flower spikes up to {{convert|10|cm|0|abbr=on}} tall, but often much shorter; these are borne on erect, often curved, stems. The reproductive shoots have several brown, reduced or un-bladed leaves at their base, as well as 4 to 8 regular leaves. The culms are irregularly three-sided with papillose hairs between the ribs. Each flower head is a dense cluster of individual flowers that are either male or female, separated by tiny leafy bracts. The male flowers each have three stamens and the female flowers each have two or three fused carpels. Flower spikes may bear either male or female flowers, or both, and are normally wind-pollinated. The fruit is a beaked nut.
Distribution and range
Carex maritima has a bipolar distribution. circumpolar distribution In the northern hemisphere it has a circumpolar distribution, and is found in the northern and central arctic tundra zone and the southern borders of the polar desert zone. In Europe its southern limit is Iceland and Southern Scandinavia. In the southern hemisphere it is found near the southern tip of South America. It is largely restricted to locations near the coast, but also occurs in mountainous regions of the Arctic and the boreal zone.{{cite web |url=https://svalbardflora.no/index.php/carex/carex-maritima |title=Carex maritima |author= |date= |work=SvalbardFlora |publisher= |accessdate=12 April 2025}}
The populations in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are genetically and ecologically distinct. Research suggests that there was a mid to late Pleistocene migration southwards from the Northern Hemisphere, either directly or by means of mountain-hopping.{{cite journal |title=Long-distance dispersal during the middle-late Pleistocene explains the bipolar disjunction of Carex maritima (Cyperaceae) |year=2015 |last1=Villaverde |first1=Tamara |last2=Escudero |first2=Marcial |last3=Luceño |first3=Modesto |last4=Martín-Bravo |first4=Santiago |journal=Journal of Biogeography |volume=42 |issue=10 |pages=1820–1831 |doi=10.1111/jbi.12559 |hdl=10261/168322 |s2cid=85651793 |hdl-access=free }}