Carex species are widespread and abundant components of many regional species pools, where they show various patterns of co-occurrence. They are ecologically different for still largely unknown reasons. Early anatomical studies of the genus already showed considerable variability in root traits; these were, however, not yet assessed systematically. In this study the roots of 107 species of a regional species pool (Germany) were studied with respect to their anatomical and phylogenetic divergence. Traits studied were the root and endodermis (stele) radius, width of the aerenchyma, thickness of the sclerenchyma and the diameter of the largest vessel. Distances of the species were calculated using pairwise Mahalanobis distances, for phylogenetic distances the patristic distance and the numbers of intermittent nodes were used. Many species were anatomically not significantly different albeit visually rather clearly sorted according to morphology. A number of species were, however, significantly deviating from the others. Closely related species may be very similar but also strongly divergent in terms of root traits; phylogenetically more distantly related species were not necessarily anatomically more distant. Only for subgenus Carex, anatomical distance was significantly related to the phylogenetic distance. Species of various clades show, at least for the regional species pool, partly rather unequal divergences. Root structures of Carex show gradual overlapping expressions that may be responsible for slightly different ecological preferences, and may have evolved with different paces and probably a high degree of homoplasy.

苔草物种是许多区域物种库的广泛和丰富的组成部分，它们在那里显示出各种共存模式。由于仍然很大程度上未知的原因，它们在生态上是不同的。该属的早期解剖学研究已经表明根性状存在相当大的变异性；然而，这些尚未系统地评估。在这项研究中，研究了区域物种库（德国）的 107 种物种的根系，研究了它们的解剖学和系统发育差异。研究的性状是根和内皮（石碑）半径、通气组织的宽度、硬化组织的厚度和最大血管的直径。物种的距离使用成对的马氏距离计算，对于系统发育距离，使用父系距离和间歇节点的数量。许多物种在解剖学上没有显着差异，尽管根据形态在视觉上相当清楚地分类。然而，一些物种与其他物种存在显着差异。密切相关的物种可能非常相似，但在根性状方面也有很大差异；系统发育上亲缘关系更远的物种不一定在解剖学上更远。仅用于亚属Carex , 解剖距离与系统发育距离显着相关。至少在区域物种库中，各种进化枝的物种表现出部分相当不平等的分歧。Carex 的根结构显示出逐渐重叠的表达，这可能是造成略微不同的生态偏好的原因，并且可能以不同的速度和高度的同质性进化。