Dapsilanthus B.G.Briggs & L.A.S.Johnson

Herbs, dioecious, perennial, caespitose or rhizomatous, the base pubescent. Cataphylls similar to sheaths but shorter. Culms branched, striate, with appressed or spreading ‘fan-hairs’ and persistent appressed sheaths. Male and female inflorescences similar or dissimilar, branched. Male spikelets either distinct and pendulous with non-exserted anthers, or small and erect in dense clusters and with exserted anthers. Female inflorescences with clusters of 3–5 very small flowers each with a bract on the pedicel, crowded in larger aggregations; the aggregations of spikelets surrounded by scarious spathes. Male flowers with 4–6 tepals and 2 or 3 stamens; anthers exserted or not exserted, narrow-elliptic, cream-coloured, apiculate. Female flowers: tepals 6, hyaline or scarious, acute or acuminate, outer tepals keeled; ovary 1-locular; style branches 3, fused at base. Fruit a small, thin-walled nut, ovoid or ellipsoid, shed with attached pedicel, tepals, floral bract and glume. Seed smooth, with a surface pattern of subangular cells. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 2–4 layers of short cells, interrupted by pillar cells and by sclerenchyma ridges opposite the outer vascular bundles that extend from the sclerenchyma sheath part-way through the chlorenchyma; central cavity present or absent; mostly with an inner sclerenchyma layer one cell thick separating the outer and inner ground tissue.

Wet or seasonally wet sites on oligotrophic soils in tropical regions.