452 Carex echinata Murr.

Syn.: C. stellulata Good.

This species belongs to a taxonomically complicated group of taxa, which together have an almost circumpolar distribution. C. echinata s. str. occurs in Europe and adjacent parts of Africa and Asia and also in eastern N. America, thus being an amphiatlantic plant (Hultén, Amphi-atl., p. 140 and map 122). Lower taxa of C. echinata or closely related taxa occur in W., C. and E. Asia, through N. America and in Australia and New Zealand, as a native plant. Thus, it belongs to the bipolar plants (Du Rietz in Acta phyt. Suec. 13/1940, p. 215). The mapping (partly from Meusel et al. 1965, p. 68) is preliminary.