Description:

• Perennial, sometimes annual, grass-like, often rhizomatous herbs, sometimes bearing corms or tubers, sometimes monoecious or with bisexual and unisexual florets together; usually associated with wet or damp conditions
• Culms (stems) 3-angled, less often cylindric, solid, sometimes hollow, nodose or nodes only ± basal and concealed by leaves, generally unbranched below inflorescence, erect or decumbent, rarely prostrate, sometimes rooting
• Leaves alternate, often 3-ranked, mostly crowded in a basal tuft, consisting of a closed, rarely split sheath, a long, narrow blade (sometimes filiform, setaceous or 0) and often a ligule at junction of sheath and blade
• Inflorescence terminal, capitate, paniculate, or anthelate (compact corymb-like inflorescence; the most common type especially in tribe Cypereae), of a single spikelet (rarely), or several to many spikelets; subtending bracts usually foliose, sometimes scale-like
• Spikelets bearing 1-many, usually bisexual, sometimes unisexual florets within distichous to spirally arranged imbricate glumes (in Schoenoxiphium and Carex female spikelet solitary, partially or wholly enclosed by sac-like perigynium)
• Perianth of 3-6 or more scales or bristles, or 0
• Stamens (1-)3, rarely more; anthers frequently basally appendaged and with a distal, usually barbate apiculus
• Ovary superior, 1-locular, with single basal ovule; style 1, sometimes thickened at base, simple or 2- or 3(or more)-branched, persistent, or sometimes deciduous above or below swelling
• Fruit an indehiscent nutlet or achene

Nomenclature:

• Cyperaceae
  • Pax: 98 (1887)
  • Clarke: 149 (1897
  • Clarke: 193 (1898)
  • Clarke: 758 (1900)
  • Schonland: 1 (1922)
  • Levyns: 97 (1950)
  • Podlech: 1 (1967)
  • Gordon-Gray: 99 (1972)
  • Compton: 58 (1976)
  • Bond & Goldblatt: 38 (1984)
  • Forbes: 29 (1987)
  • Gordon-Gray: 1 (1995)
  • Goetghebeur (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 104, species ± 5 000, cosmopolitan; mostly in moist areas
• Southern Africa: Genera 40, species ± 400

References:

• BOND, P. & GOLDBLATT, P. 1984. Plants of the Cape Flora: A descriptive catalogue. Journal of South African Botany Suppl. Vol. 13
• BRUHL, J.J. 1995. Sedge genera of the world: relationships and a new classification of the Cyperaceae. Australian Systematic Botany 8, 2
• CLARKE, C.B. 1897. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7
• CLARKE, C.B. 1898. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7
• CLARKE, C.B. 1900. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7. Addenda and corrigenda
• COMPTON, R.H. 1976. Cyperaceae. Flora of Swaziland. Journal of South African Botany Suppl. Vol. 11
• FORBES, P.L. 1987. Cyperaceae. In T.K. Lowrey & S. Wright, The Flora of the Witwatersrand Vol. 1: The Monocotyledonae. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg
• GOETGHEBEUR, P. 1998. Cyperaceae. In K. Kubitzki, The families and genera of vascular plants 4. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• GORDON-GRAY, K.D. 1971. Fimbristylis and Bulbostylis: Generic limits as seen by a student of southern African species. AETFAT Proceedings. Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 10
• GORDON-GRAY, K.D. 1972. Cyperaceae. In J.H. Ross, The Flora of Natal. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 39
• GORDON-GRAY, K.D. 1995. Cyperaceae in Natal. Strelitzia 2
• LEVYNS, M.R. 1950. Cyperaceae. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula. Juta, Cape Town
• LYE, K.A. 1971. The generic concept of Bulbostylis Kunth ex C.B.Cl. AETFAT Proceedings. Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 10
• LYE, K.A. 1995. Cyperaceae. Flora of Somalia 4
• LYE, K.A. 1996. A new subspecies of Bulbostylis hispidula (Cyperaceae) from Somalia. Willdenowia 25
• MUASYA, A.M., SIMPSON, D.A., CHASE, M.W. & CULHAM, A. 1998. An assessment of suprageneric phylogeny in Cyperaceae using rbcL DNA sequences. Plant Systematics and Evolution 211
• PAX, F. 1887. Cyperaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 2, 2
• PODLECH, D. 1967. Cyperaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 165
• SCHONLAND, S. 1922. Introduction to South African Cyperaceae. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 3

Resources:

• Classification of Cyperaceae
• Key to Cyperaceae groups and genera

• Cyperaceae genera: