Description :

• Perennials, usually tufted, sometimes with runners
• Culms with basal nodes
• Leaves basal, sometimes cauline, ligulate; blade linear
• lnflorescence capitate or digitate
• Spikelets usually of many spirally imbricate glumes; lowest 1 or 2 glumes sterile, upper bisexual, fertile, uppermost with male florets or empty
• Perianth of 0-6 bristles, retrorsely scabrid, rarely plumose
• Stamens 1-3
• Ovary sessile or with short gynophore
• Style slender, elongate, rarely short, passing gradually into ovary, 2- or 3-branched, deciduous or sometimes persistent
• Nutlet oblong or obovoid, biconvex or 3-angular
• x = 5, 7, 8 (6, 9, 11) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• This genus is currently being redefined
• In recent years the following southern Africa genera have been removed from Scirpus in its broad sense:
  • Bolboschoenus , Isolepis (including Eleogiton ), Kyllingiella , Oxycaryum , Pseudoschoenus , Schoenoplectus and Scirpoides
• It is likely that Scirpus in its strict sense does not occur in southern Africa

Nomenclature:

• Scirpus L.
  • Linnaeus: 47 (1753)
  • Clarke: 210 (1898) in part
  • Clarke: 446 (1902) in part
  • Podlech: 44 (1967) in part
  • Gordon-Gray: 109 (1972) in part
  • Gordon-Gray: 174 (1995)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 20, mostly northern hemisphere, usually wet places
• Southern Africa : Species ± 4, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Northern and Eastern Cape