[Picture of <em>Carex constanceana</em>]

Carex constanceana (August 2008)

Carex constanceana is known from three small areas, one on Mt. Adams, WA (extirpated), one from the central Sierra Nevada, CA, and one in Oregon.

This summer the Carex Working Group, in cooperation with the Fremont National Forest, relocated the C. constanceana population in the north Warner Mountains in Lake County, Oregon. We also found a small population (seven plants) near Gearhart Mountain. We failed to find C. constanceana at dozens of other sites where we searched; it is truly a rare plant.

Meanwhile, Peter Zika visited the C. constanceana population in the Sagehen Experimental Forest in California and located a few hundred plants.

This summer’s work raises more questions than it answers. We wonder about C. constanceana habitat, though we do have some hypotheses. We also wonder about the relationship of C. constanceana with C. davyi, a California endemic with large perigynia, also found at the California site. We wonder about the relationship of C. constanceana with C. petasata and C. multicostata, which rarely grow together but can both be found near one of the C. constanceana populations in Oregon. We even wonder about the relationship between the Oregon C. constanceana and the very slightly different California plants. We hope to gain more information to post here at a later date.