Source:
SSA
Description:
Small, tufted, perennial, marsh herbs. Leaves radical, numerous, grass-like, often with a latticed tissue-pattern below. Capitula usually white-hairy, rarely glabrous, borne on +/- erect scapes surrounded by a closed sheath below, longer than leaves. Maleflowers: sepals 2 or 3, variously connate, ciliate, bearded or glabrous at apex; petals 2 or 3, free, sometimes rudimentary or 0, inserted on raised flower axis, usually with apical gland, often hairy on inner face, ciliate or bearded above; stamens 4 or 6. Female flowers: sepals and petals usually free; staminodes 0; ovary 2- or 3-locular; style branches 2 or 3, simple, without appendages. Capsule 2- or 3-locular. Seeds ellipsoid or globose. x= 8, 10 (6) (aneuploids, high polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species 250-400, tropical and subtropical; 12 in sthn Afr., widespread, excluding Western Cape; on river banks, in seepage areas and in the shallow waters of lakes and pools.
Classification:
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