515.000 Scleria Bergius

Annual or perennial herbs. Culms ± triangular, leafy. Leaves linear to narrowly oblong. Sheaths closed. Spikelets bearing flowers of one or both sexes; the bisexual spikelets with one basal female and 1-few males above; female spikelet with 1 basal female and 1-2 empty scales or none, above; male spikelets with 1-numerous male flowers. Flowers unisexual, solitary in axils of the glumes, the lower 2-4 glumes empty. Perianth bristles 0. Male flowers consisting of 1-3 stamens. Female flowers with 3 stigmas, not enclosed in a utricle. Nutlet often white, grey or ± black, borne on a hypogynium. Hypogynium often triangular, widened out into a simple or 3-lobed disk or (rarely) a cupule or almost 0.

Worldwide: 200 species in tropical and warm regions

Caprivi: 15 cultivated taxa.