Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted, rhizomatous, marsh or aquatic herbs
• Leaves alternate, grass- or rush-like, filiform, linear to narrowly lanceolate, sheathing at base or reduced to sheaths
• Flowers usually bisexual, regular, marcescent, small, in terminal panicles, corymbs or heads, rarely solitary
• Perianth 3 + 3; segments subsimilar, rarely inner whorl absent, glumaceous, mostly green or brown to blackish
• Stamens (3)3 + 3, hypogynous; filaments trigonous or filiform; anthers 2-thecous, basifixed, introrse, opening lengthways; pollen in tetrads
• Ovary superior, 1- or 3-locular; ovules 3-many, basal, axile or parietal, biseriate, bitegmic; style present or 0; stigmas 3
• Capsule 1-3-locular, dehiscing loculicidally
• Seeds 3-many, small, ovoid, obovoid, globose, spindle-shaped or compressed, often with basal and/or apical appendages; embryo straight; endosperm starchy

Nomenclature:

• Juncaceae
  • Brown: 16 (1897)
  • Friedrich-Holzhammer: 156 (1967)
  • Obermeyer: 71 (1985)
  • Cook: 108 (1990)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 7, species ± 314, cosmopolitan, in moist, temperate or cold regions. Juncus and Luzula are the largest genera occurring worldwide, with the highest species diversity in the northern hemisphere; the remaining five smaller genera are restricted to the southern hemisphere, especially South America
• Southern Africa: Genera 2, species ± 27

References:

• BROWN, N.E. 1897. Juncaceae. Flora capensis 7
• COOK, C.D.K. 1990. Aquatic plant book. SPB Academic Publishing, The Hague
• FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1967. Juncaceae. Prodomus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 156
• OBERMEYER, A.A. 1985. Juncaceae. Flora of southern Africa 4,2

Resources:

• Key to Juncaceae genera

• Juncaceae genera: