Cyperaceae name details
Carex drakensbergensis C.B.Clarke
1693853 (urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:1693853)
unaccepted
Species
terrestrial
Clarke, C. B. (1898). Cyperaceae. In: Thiselton-Dyer, W.T. (ed.), Flora capensis: being a systematic description of the plants of the Cape colony, Caffraria, & Port Natal (and neighbouring territories). Vol. VII. Pontederiaceae to Gramineae, pp. 149-310. L. Reeve & Co., Covent Garden; Williams & Norgate, Covent Garden, London., available online at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235904#page/157/mode/1up
page(s): 309; note: Published in July 1898. Link: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235807#page/321/mode/1up [details]
page(s): 309; note: Published in July 1898. Link: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235807#page/321/mode/1up [details]
Cyperaceae Working Group. (2025). [see How to cite]. Global Cyperaceae Database. Carex drakensbergensis C.B.Clarke. Accessed at: https://www.cyperaceae.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1693853 on 2025-09-12
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Nomenclature
original description
Clarke, C. B. (1898). Cyperaceae. In: Thiselton-Dyer, W.T. (ed.), Flora capensis: being a systematic description of the plants of the Cape colony, Caffraria, & Port Natal (and neighbouring territories). Vol. VII. Pontederiaceae to Gramineae, pp. 149-310. L. Reeve & Co., Covent Garden; Williams & Norgate, Covent Garden, London., available online at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235904#page/157/mode/1up
page(s): 309; note: Published in July 1898. Link: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235807#page/321/mode/1up [details]
basis of record Plants of the World Online (POWO). , available online at https://powo.science.kew.org/ [details]
page(s): 309; note: Published in July 1898. Link: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30235807#page/321/mode/1up [details]
basis of record Plants of the World Online (POWO). , available online at https://powo.science.kew.org/ [details]
Present Inaccurate Introduced: alien Containing type locality
Paralectotype K 000363598, geounit Free State [details]
From editor or global species database
Diagnosis Stems 3 ft. long, stout, triquetrous at the top, rough; leaves 1-2 ft. by 1/4-1/3 in., closely longitudinally striate, not (or most obscurely) transversely lineolate; spikes 5-7, lower distant 3-8 in.; bracts very long; lower peduncles often 3-4 in. long (and top female spike usually distinctly peduncled); terminal spike male, or with a very few females at the top; glumes 1/3 in. long, narrow-lanceolate, pale-brown; female spikes 1-3 by 1/4-1/3 in., dense, pale-brown in fruit; female glumes elliptic, bright-brown; arista reaching the top of the beak; style 3-fid; utricle 1/6 in. long (beak included), ellipsoid, rather suddenly narrowed, with 1-8 very strong ribs, glabrous; beak 1/3 the length of the utricle or rather more, deeply bifid into almost linear teeth; nut nearly filling the utricle. [details]Synonymy Clarke (1898) distinguished C. drakensbergensis with its longer, drooping, distant, pedunculate spikes with dark ferruginous female bracts from C. cognata with shorter, erect, clustered, nearly sessile spikes and greenish female bracts. Shortly afterwards Kükenthal (1909) found that the two taxa were not separable at species level and reduced C. drakensbergensis to a variety of C. cognata.
Intensive herbarium studies of mainly southern African material (Reid 1991) indicated that plants matching C. drakensbergensis occurred mainly at high altitude, growing in open sunny habitats, whereas plants matching C. cognata sensu stricto occurred near the coast, in the Okavango Swamps of Botswana, and [not reported by Podlech (1967)] at waterholes in the great Waterberg of Namibia, growing in lightly shaded habitats. In practice, however, it is not possible to divide herbarium specimens into two meaningful taxa since there are always intermediate examples. At Hogsback in Eastern Cape, we observed individuals conforming to the concept of C. drakensbergensis growing in open grassland on a stream bank. A very short distance downstream, individuals of what is evidently the same population were lightly shaded by planted Pinus species (the sedge population apparently pre-dating the tree plantation) and conformed to the concept of C. cognata. We concluded that the differences between these two taxa are entirely habitat-related, and that C. drakensbergensis cannot be upheld as a separate taxon, not even as a variety of C. cognata, as was done by Kükenthal (1909). Reid (1991, unpublished) therefore regarded C. drakensbergensis as conspecific with C. cognata, and Gordon-Gray (1995) formally upheld this synonymy.
Gehrke (2011) once again treated C. drakensbergensis as a separate species, stating “Most South African material so far identified as C. cognata can be assigned to var. drakensbergensis, which I also regard as a distinct species (34. C. drakensbergensis). The remaining material from South Africa and Lesotho usually has partially pendulous spikes, which are less densely clustered than most material from further north, and both forms (i.e., those with clustered spikes and those with more distant ones) might deserve the status of subspecies. Carex congolensis differs from 34. C. drakensbergensis by spikes all erect or rarely with a pendulous lateral spike, utricles inflated at maturity and a rostrellum with shorter, 1 mm-long, finer teeth (C. drakensbergensis has mostly pendulous spikes, utricles not inflated at maturity and a rostrellum with 1 mm long teeth).” However, having studied numerous herbarium collections (Reid 1991), in our opinion fully mature specimens of C. drakensber- gensis do indeed have inflated utricles, and as stated above, the perceived differences in orientation of spikes and length of teeth on rostrellum (or rostrum) of the utricles are infinitely variable within these taxa and cannot be employed to separate them. [details]
