Morphological variation of Carex muricata from 232 localities in the Czech Republicwas analysed. The plants were preliminarily classified using qualitative characters into six species: C. contigua, C. muricata, C. pairae, C. chabertii, C. divulsa, and C. leersiana. Of 27 quantitative characters, all were used in a principal components analysis and 25 in a discriminant analysis. Both analyses were done using the data for all the species and then separately for the taxonomically complicated species pairs. In the discriminant analysis, the most useful characters for separating particular species were selected; they included the distance between the first and second lowermost spike of the infructescence, infructescence length, glume length in pistillate flower, achene length, length of perigynium beak and spike size. In the classification discriminant analysis, with the six most important characters, 94.4% of plants were correctly classified to the designated groups. The analysis showed that some species pairs (C. muricata – C. pairae, C. chabertii – C. leersiana) are only partially distinguished by quantitative morphological characters. Some other species (C. contigua, C. divulsa), however, are well differentiated and easily identified.
The annotated chromosome numbers of 25 species from 6 families of monocotyledons, most of them (14) belonging to Poaceae family, are presented here. The data, except three chromosome counts (Allium oleraceum from Hungary and Calamagrostis villosa from Slovakia), are all based on plants collected in the Czech Republic. The karyological data of 21 species represents new information. While the majority of species presented here originated from one or two localities each, the species Calamagrostis villosa has been studied more extensively: all plants, collected altogether at 13 localities (mountain and lower altitudes), are characterized by an invariable decaploid level (2n = 70). The record of triploid Allium oleraceum is only the second reference to this rare ploidy level in this species. All original karyological data are compared with literature references to particular species, preferentially from Europe.
Cyperus eragrostis Lam. was first recorded in the Czech Republic in an empty water reservoir at Jablonec nad Nisou (N Bohemia) in 1999. In this study, herbarium specimens of C. eragrostis in large herbaria in the Czech Republic were revised and the invasion of Europe by this species was reviewed. A brief description of C. eragrostis is given, distribution map of the temporal course of its invasion is presented and the species’ ecology in Europe characterized. Accompanying vegetation and results of the analyses of soil from the site are described. How the plant reached this locality remains unknown. The occurrence was only ephemeral as the only tussock was destroyed when the water reservoir was refilled.
The name Carex muricata subsp. lamprocarpa “Čelak.” (1879) is frequently used in floras for C. pairae F. W. Schultz when it is treated as a subspecies of C. muricata L. However, the combination C. muricata var. lamprocarpa was published by Wallroth in 1822. The corresponding specimen in Wallroth’s collection in PR, studied by L. Čelakovský and designated here as a lectotype, is C. muricata as it has the characteristic shiny utricles. So the combination C. muricata subsp. pairae (F. W. Schultz) Čelak. (1870) has to be used.