PHENOTYPIC FLEXIBILITY OF CAREX FLACCA SCHREB.: TOLERANCE OF SOIL FLOODING BY Populations FROM CONTRASTING HABITATS.

Nine populations of Carex flacca Schreb., collected from sites which vary widely in their liability to soil flooding, were grown on an experimental soil with free drainage, transient flooding or continuous flooding for 26 weeks. Although the flooding treatments resulted in low redox potentials and high concentrations of reduced iron and manganese in the soil, the growth of C. flacca plants was little affected by flooding. All populations grew equally well on the flooded soils. All populations produced adventitious roots at the soil surface in the flooded treatments; these were absent from plants grown on the freely drained soil. Flooding produced an increase in the manganese concentration of roots and shoots but, although the iron content of roots was markedly increased by flooding, there was no increased transport to the shoots. In view of the absence of detectable phenotypic differentiation between these populations from widely contrasting sites and their unimpaired growth on severely waterlogged soils, it is argued that C. flacca plants have a broad tolerance (phenotypic flexibility) of soil flooding. This may be important in the wide ecological amplitude of this species.