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 Botswana: 10 taxa. |
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| Species | FZ divisions | Content |
| distans Poir. | Description, Image | |
| dregeana Kunth | Description, Image | |
| foliosa Hochst. ex A.Rich. | Description, Image | |
| lacustris Sauvalle | Description, Image | |
| melanomphala Kunth | Description, Image | |
| rehmannii C.B. Clarke | Description, Image | |
| schimperiana Boeckeler | Description, Image | |
| unguiculata E.A. Rob. | ||
| veseyfitzgeraldii E.A. Rob. | ||
| woodii C.B.Clarke var. woodii Napper | Description, Image |