M6 - Carex Echinata-Sphagnum Recurvum/Auriculatum Mire

Summary

Synonymy

Juncus acutiflorus flush bog Ratcliffe 1959a; Juncus effusus flush bog Ratcliffe 1959a; Sphagneto-Juncetum effusi McVean & Ratcliffe 1962, Eddy et al. 1969 p.p., Birks 1973, Prentice & Prentice 1975; Sphagneto-Caricetum sub-alpinum McVean & Ratcliffe 1962, Prentice & Prentice 1975, Evans et al. 1977; Juncus effusus-Sphagnum mire Ratcliffe 1964, Ferreira 1978; Sub-alpine Carex-Sphagnum mire Ratcliffe 1964, Ferreira 1978; Juncus effusus-Sphagnum recurvum sociation Edgell 1969; Carex-Sphagnum recurvum nodum Birks 1973; Violo-Epilobietum sphagnetosum recurvae Jones 1973 p.p.; Carex-Sphagnum-Polytrichum nodum Huntley 1979: Caricetum echinato-paniceae (Birse & Robertson 1976) Birse 1980 p.p., Juncus effusus-Sphagnum recurvum Community (Birse & Robertson 1976) Birse 1980; Sphagnum recurvum-Juncus effusus mire Ratcliffe & Hattey 1982, Sphagnum-Carex nigra mire Ratcliffe & Hattey 1982; Caricetum nigrae Dierssen 1982; Juncus effusus Gesellschaft Dierssen 1982.

Constant species

Carex echinata, Polytrichum commune, Sphagnum auriculatum! recurvum (Agrostis canina ssp. canina, Molinia caerulea, Potentilla erecta, Viola palustris).

Physiognomy

The Carex echinata-Sphagnum recurvum!auriculatum mire has a quite distinct general character but shows a wide range of variation in its composition, more particularly in the proportional representation of its different structural components, something which can have a marked effect on the gross physiognomy of the vegetation. Essentially, this is a poor-fen in which either small sedges or rushes dominate over a carpet of more oligotrophic and base-intolerant Sphagna and it is in these two elements that most of the differences in the community can be seen: variation among the former helps characterise the four sub-communities; differences in the latter allow variants to be distinguished.

The constants of the Carex echinata-Sphagnum mire are very few. Among the vascular plants, only Carex echinata itself attains uniformly high frequency throughout but, of other sedges that can be found here, C. nigra and C. panicea are quite common and C. demissa occasional; and, although this combination can be found in other Caricion nigrae mires, taken together with the other floristic features of this community, it is quite diagnostic. Two further negative characteristics of the sedge component serve to sharpen up the definition of the vegetation. First, more calcicolous species, such as C. dioica, C. pulicaris, C. lepidocarpa and C. flacca are either very infrequent or totally absent; and second, though species like C. rostrata and C. curta can occur in more swampy stands, they are of no more than local significance.