Description :

• Perennials or annuals, tufted, long-stoloniferous or long-rhizomatous, sometimes tuberous
• Culms erect, with aerial nodes, generally 3-angled; bases sometimes swollen
• Leaves sheathing at base, ligulate or eligulate; sheath with adaxial apex n-shaped or truncate; blade narrow, with keeled midrib, profile V-shaped to flanged V-shaped, margins scabrid
• Inflorescence panicled
• Spikelets unisexual or bisexual; florets all unisexual; bisexual spikelets with one basal female floret and 1-few male florets above; unisexual female spikelet with single female floret at base and empty glumes above; unisexual male spikelets without female floret at base and often with more than one male floret
• Perianth cupular or 0, upper margin frequently irregularly lobed or fimbriate, mostly shed with nutlet
• Stamens (1)2 or 3; anthers often apiculate
• Style not dilated at base, 3-branched
• Nutlet white to black, ovoid, bony, smooth, hairy or warty, stipitate
• x = 5, 7 (aneuploids)

Nomenclature:

• Scleria P.J.Bergius
  • Bergius: 142, t. 4 (1765)
  • Clarke: 293 (1898)
  • Clarke: 493 (1902)
  • Schonland: 64 (1922)
  • Podlech: 51 (1967)
  • Gordon-Gray: 111 (1972)
  • Compton: 73 (1976)
  • Franklin Hennessy: 505 (1985)
  • Forbes: 63 (1987)
  • Gordon-Gray: 178 (1995)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 250, ± cosmopolitan, in tropical and subtropical regions, except Europe, Mediterranean and Orient
• Southern Africa : Species 12, widespread, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape