Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Robust perennials, with horizontal, long–creeping rhizomes, also bearing tubers.

Stems: Culms nodose, leafy.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades linear. Margins entire. Sheathing; sheaths usually bearded at the throat. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences terminal or rarely anthelate, open or occasionally congested and head-like; involucral bracts leaf-like, the lowest one occasionally erect; spikelets relatively large, ovoid to ellipsoid, terete (cylindrical); glumes numerous, spirally arranged, all similar and bearing an axillary perfect flower, membranous, usually 1–nerved, often pubescent externally. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Perianth of 0–6 bristles, these needlelike and usually caducous. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 3. Ovary superior; styles continuous with ovary; stigmas 2–3, the number often varying in a single inflorescence.

Fruit: Achenes obovoid; dorsiventrally lenticular or trigonous. Seeds 1; seed coat thin; free from pericarp; embryo basal; endosperm abundant.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: