Deergrass

Tufted Bulrush

Scirpus cespitosus var. delicatulus Fernald [Not known from New York] Scirpus cespitosus L.

Scirpus cespitosus var. callosus Bigelow

The segregate genus Trichophorum has been used as a separate genus distinct from Scirpus or as a section of Scirpus since 1805. The type for this genus has been conserved as T. alpinum (Salmenkallio and Kukkonen 1989, Greuter et al. 2000). Trichophorum is currently accepted as a distinct genus of nine species worldwide including T. cespitosum (Crins 2002). The name Baeothryon has sometimes been applied to this group but is now considered a synonym for Eleocharis (Salmenkallio and Kukkonen 1989). As Fernald (1921) pointed out, the name used by Linnaeus in the original publication was Scirpus cespitosus, and therefore, should not be altered to S. caespitosus (Greuter et al. 2000) as has been done by some authors (Palla 1897). When placed in the genus Trichophorum, the specific epithet should be altered to cespitosum, to agree grammatically with the new genus name (Greuter et al. 2000). The transfer of S. cespitosus to T. cespitosum was done by both Hartman in 1849 and Schur in 1853 (International Plant Name Index 2007). Therefore, Schur's authorship is considered a later isonym and disregarded. The correct authorship is T. cespitosum Hartman. Two taxa within T. cespitosum have been recognized as long ago as 1897 (Palla 1897, Swan 1999). At the subspecific rank these are T. cespitosum ssp. cespitosum and T. cespitosum ssp. germanicum. Subspecies germanicum is restricted to Atlantic and Subatlantic Europe while ssp. cespitosum is circumpolar and occurs in North America, Europe, and Asia. There has been differing opinion as to which of these taxa applies to the species Linnaeus described as Scirpus cespitosus. Swan (1999) designated the lectotype thereby fixing the circumpolar taxa as the type of the species. In North America, the name S. cespitosus var. callosus has been applied to the circumpolar taxa and now clearly needs to be considered a syno