Cyperaceae - Sedge family

Annual or perennial herbs, usually most abundant in wet places. Culms usually triangular, usually solid. Leaves: alternate, usually 3-ranked, simple, grass-like or reduced to sheaths; sheath usually closed; ligule usually 0; lamina usually linear or setaceous. Inflorescence consisting of numerous spikelets, usually arranged in an anthela or panicle, often ± umbellate and subtended by leaf-like bracts. Flowers bisexual or unisexual, arising in the axils of a single bract (glume) without a bracteole, or in tribe Cariceae, the female flowers surrounded by a closed utricle. Glumes usually spirally arranged in 1-many-flowered spikelets. Perianth (only present in the tribes Scirpeae and Rhynchosporeae) consisting of 3-6 (rarely more) hairs, bristles or scales, in other tribes 0. Stamens (1-)2-3; anthers basifixed. Ovary superior, 1-locular with 1 erect ovule. Style simple; stigmas 2 or 3. Fruit a 1-seeded nut, biconvex or trigonous. Seeds free from the pericarp.

Worldwide: 98 genera and 4,350 species, cosmopolitan but especially temperate areas.

Caprivi: 17 genera and 51 taxa.