Monographs Details:
Authority:
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
Family:
Cyperaceae
Cyperaceae
Description:
Genus Description - Grass-like or rush-like herbs. Stems (culms) slender, solid (rarely hollow), triangular, quadrangular, terete or flattened. Roots fibrous (many species perennial by long rootstocks). Leaves narrow, with closed sheaths. Flowers perfect or imperfect, arranged in spikelets, one (rarely 2) in the axil of each scale (glume, bract), the spikelets solitary or clustered, 1- many-flowered. Scales 2-ranked or spirally imbricated, persistent or deciduous. Perianth hypogynous, composed of bristles, or interior scales, rarely calyx-like, or entirely wanting. Stamens 1-3, rarely more. Filaments slender or filiform. Anthers 2-celled. Ovary 1-ceiled. Ovule 1, anatropous, erect. Style 2-3-cleft or rarely simple or minutely 2-toothed. Fruit a lenticular, plano-convex, or trigonous achene. Endosperm mealy. Embryo minute. About 65 genera and 3000 speices, of very wide geographic distribution.
Genus Description - Grass-like or rush-like herbs. Stems (culms) slender, solid (rarely hollow), triangular, quadrangular, terete or flattened. Roots fibrous (many species perennial by long rootstocks). Leaves narrow, with closed sheaths. Flowers perfect or imperfect, arranged in spikelets, one (rarely 2) in the axil of each scale (glume, bract), the spikelets solitary or clustered, 1- many-flowered. Scales 2-ranked or spirally imbricated, persistent or deciduous. Perianth hypogynous, composed of bristles, or interior scales, rarely calyx-like, or entirely wanting. Stamens 1-3, rarely more. Filaments slender or filiform. Anthers 2-celled. Ovary 1-ceiled. Ovule 1, anatropous, erect. Style 2-3-cleft or rarely simple or minutely 2-toothed. Fruit a lenticular, plano-convex, or trigonous achene. Endosperm mealy. Embryo minute. About 65 genera and 3000 speices, of very wide geographic distribution.