Jinus Hejazi, Ahmad Reza Bahrami, Jamil Vaezi, Farshid Memariani, Mohammad Reza Joharchi
" The genus Carex L. is one of the largest (2000 spp.) of all flowering plant genera. There are 85 species of Carex in Iran plateau with approximately half of them are present in Iran. We investigated morphologically nine species of Carex from two subgenera, Vignea and Carex, in Northeast of Iran. In this study, 102 characters were assessed including 53 quantitative and 49 qualitative characters. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis (UPGMA) were used to examine the relationships between taxa included in this study. Consequently, two major groups were identified; first group consists of C. pachystylis J. GAY., C. divisa, HUDS., C. physodes M.B., C. divulsa STOKES., and C. cuprina (Sándor ex Heuff.) Nendtv.ex A.Kern.; and second group includes C. sylvatica HUDS., C. songorica KAR. &KIR., C. distans L., and C. diluta M. B. In the PCA, two species C. diluta and C. distans were not well separated while the cluster analysis seemed to be better for distinguishing these two species. We concluded that micro-morphological characters are somewhat, but not fully, useful for species boundaries. Finally we provided revised key for the identification of these nine species."