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Herbs, annual or perennial, medium sized, often rhizomatous. Culms usually tufted, slender, 3-or 5-angled or flattened. Leaves basal, sometimes reduced to a bladeless sheath; ligule if present membranous or a fringe of hairs; leaf blade linear, filiform, or rarely ensiform, usually dorsiventrally compressed and canaliculate, often adaxially cellular-reticulate. Inflorescences terminal, a simple, compound, or decompound anthela, rarely capitate or reduced to 1 terminal spikelet. Spikelets solitary or fascicled, ovoid, ellipsoid, or subglobose, terete or flattened, with several to many flowers. Glumes spirally imbricate, distichous, or only basal ones distichous and apical ones spirally imbricate, often with 1 or more veins forming an abaxial keel and sometimes extending into an apical mucro or arista. Flowers bisexual. Perianth bristles absent. Stamens 1-3. Style not persistent on nutlet, basally enlarged. Nutlet sometimes stipitate, biconvex, 3-sided, or almost terete, either reticulate, verruculose, or both.
Herbs, annual or perennial, usually cespitose, rhizomatous or not. Culms sometimes solitary, scapose, stiff or flaccid, terete, compressed, or 3–5-angled, coarse or fine. Leaves basal, distichous or polystichous; sheaths open apically, shorter than blade, with broad scarious margins; ligule absent at junction with blade or, if present, of erect short hairs, transverse, continuous or interrupted; blades flat or variously folded, terete, or sulcate, not prominently keeled on abaxial surface, the widest not more than 2 mm wide. Inflorescences simple or compound anthelae, rarely capitate; spikelets 1–80+, rarely single; involucral bracts 2–5, spreading or rarely erect, scalelike or leaflike. Spikelets mainly ovoid to lanceoloid or cylindric, sometimes compressed; scales 8–100+, spirally arranged, each subtending flower or proximal 1–2 empty. Flowers bisexual; perianth absent; stamens 1–3; styles flattened or subterete, 2–3-fid, base enlarged, deciduous. Achenes biconvex or trigonous, reticulate-honeycombed.
Infl. a compound or congested umbel, or a single spikelet. Spikelets several-fld, with ∞ spirally imbricating glumes; lowest 1–2 glumes empty, many or several succeeding glumes hermaphrodite and fertile; uppermost glumes male or sterile. Hypog. bristles 0. Stamens 1–3. Style 2–3-fid, with enlarged base distinct from the nut and caducous with the style. Nut trigonous or biconvex. Tufted annual or perennial herbs, lvs crowded at bases of culms, occ. reduced to sheaths only. Spp. c. 300 in tropical and warm temperate areas, especially plentiful in south-east Asia and north-east Australia. The single N.Z. sp. is found in most tropical and warm countries.
Spikelets several to many in simple or compound, often umbelliform cymes or glomerules, forming a terminal infl subtended by a cluster of sheathless, leafy or scarious invol bracts; scales spirally imbricate; fls perfect; perianth none; stamens 1–3; style 2–3-cleft, wholly deciduous, usually enlarged at base, the unbranched part often flattened and fimbriate especially distally; radicle lateral; herbs with a few long, grass-like lvs near the base, the sheath entire or short-ciliate. 200, warm reg. Spp. 3–5 are closely related and might with some reason be treated as well marked vars. of the tropical F. spadicea (L.) Vahl.
Plants annual or perennial, the culms leafy below; spikelets usually capitate or on short rays, sometimes solitary, with a leafy involucre; scales concave, usually spirally imbricate, all fertile; perianth none; stamens 1-3; style 2-to 3-cleft, usually with an enlarged deciduous base; achene lenticular, biconvex, or 3-angulate, with quadrangular or horizontally elongate cells
