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Cyperaceae |
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Members of this large, cosmopolitan family (commonly called sedges) are found throughout Australia in all habitats, from the arid interior to the high alps, and from coastal strands to rain forests. They are characteristically found in wet places, in marshes, swamps, roadside ditches or ephemeral pools, but some species have successfully adapted to drier conditions.
Description
Annual or perennial terrestrial herbs, or aquatic herbs rooted in the substrate with their leaves emergent or rarely floating, rarely herbaceous scrambling vines. Perennating by tubers or rhizomes. Vegetative reproduction absent or by tubers, rhizomes, stolons, bulbils or proliferous flowerheads. Leaves present or ±absent. Stem internodes solid, spongy or pithy or hollow, terete, oval or slightly flattened, strongly flattened or distinctly angular. Internal secretions not obvious. Plants glabrous or with simple, non-glandular, unicellular or rarely uniseriate hairs. Leaves well developed or much reduced (i.e. to scales, etc.), alternate and spiral, cauline, all or mostly basal, or both basal and cauline, sessile. Stipule-like lobes present or apparently absent. Lamina simple, symmetric, filiform, acicular, subulate or linear; margins entire, ±flat, revolute or recurved; venation parallel, with the midrib conspicuous or inconspicuous, and the tertiary venation not reticulate; surfaces not punctate; herbaceous or leathery; distinctive odour absent or rarely aromatic. Leaf ligule present or absent. Male and female flowers on the same plant or rarely on separate plants, or with all the flowers bisexual, or with bisexual flowers together with male flowers. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, consisting of capitula, glomerules, spikes, racemes, or apparently panicles or umbels, or rarely spikelets. Spathes rarely present. Bracts present. Pollination by wind, or rarely insects. Flowers odourless; sessile. Floral disc present or absent; nectaries absent. Perianth regular or irregular, of 1 whorl only or vestigial or absent, with (0–) 3–6, free, ±petaloid segments, white, cream, yellow, orange, grey, brown or black, without contrasting markings, papery. Fertile stamens 1–3 (–6), not clearly correlated with and free of the perianth segments, free of the ovary and style, distinct from each other, all ±equal. Anthers basifixed, not versatile, opening sideways or inwards by longitudinal slits; 2-celled; with appendages absent or apical or basal. Ovary superior and sessile. Carpels (1–) 2–3 (–4), fused; ovary with 1 locule. Style terminal, single and branched, rarely single and unbranched above or from the base. Ovule 1, ?sessile; placentation basal. Fruit a dry, indehiscent achene, a nut or a utricle; the perianth on the maturing fruit deciduous, rarely growing larger. Disseminule macro-surface featureless or with a pappus or rarely winged; micro-surface ±smooth, granulate, colliculate, tuberculate, papillose, verrucose, reticulate, alveolate, foveate or rugose, white, cream, yellow, orange, brown, grey or black, glossy or dull. Seeds 1 per fruit. Aril absent. Cotyledons 1. Embryo straight. A treatment of the family Cyperaceae has not yet been published in the Flora of Australia. It will appear in Volumes 41 & 42.
Australian genera of Cyperaceae (as recognised for the Flora of Australia)
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 Carex gaudichaudiana (flowering plant) Photo: C.Totterdell © ANBG
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