Characteristic morphological features

Although the Cyperaceae are similar in appearance to grasses (family Poaceae) and placed in the same order, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the closest relatives of Cyperaceae are the rushes (family Juncaceae). Rushes share with sedges a number of specialized anatomic and developmental features. Both families have chromosomes with a very peculiar structure. The centromeres, the point of attachment of the spindle fibres during meiosis, are not localized at one point near the middle but rather are distributed diffusely over the length of the chromosomes. Both the Cyperaceae and the Juncaceae have pollen that is dispersed as tetrads, although in the Cyperaceae three of the four nuclei produced by meiosis degenerate to leave only one functional nucleus in the tetrad. Both families also have tristichous phyllotaxy (leaves in three ranks).

Grasses differ from sedges in many features, most obviously in their sheaths and the arrangement of the leaves on the stem. In the grasses leaf initiation begins on one side of the stem and the leaf margins grow around the stem from both sides of the centre of initiation until they encircle the stem, the margins overlapping when they meet. For the sedges, growth is as in grasses except that the leaf margins fuse when they meet around the stem on the opposite side of the centre of initiation. In grasses, the leaves are arranged alternately and in two ranks (distichous); that is, successive leaves arise on opposite sides of the stem, creating two vertical rows of leaves. In the sedges, three vertical rows are created (tristichous), with successive leaves developing at 120 degrees around the circumference of the stem.

The stems of Cyperaceae are often triangular and mostly solid, whereas those of grasses are never triangular and are usually hollow except at the nodes. In spikelets of Cyperaceae the individual flowers are subtended by a single scale, whereas the individual flowers of the grasses usually are subtended by two scales. Grasses have localized centromeres and single-celled pollen grains.

A majority of sedges have the morphological appearance of grasslike herbaceous perennials with fibrous roots, triangular stems, and three-ranked, linear leaves. A significant number are annuals, especially those of weedy or seasonal habitats. Many species have rhizomes of varying lengths; in a number of species, these rhizomes are important food storage organs and may even be tuberous. In many species, these rhizomes form extensive underground systems that are very important in local vegetative dispersal. In those species adapted to dunes or other sandy sites, the rhizome systems play an important role in dune formation and soil stabilization. Some species, especially in the genera Eleocharis and Schoenoplectus, have round stems, and a few species such as Eleocharis quadrangulata have four-angled or polygonal stems. Most sedges have solid stems or stems with only a small, irregular cavity, but a few, such as the three-way sedge (Dulichium arundinaceum), have hollow stems.

Sedges range in size from tiny plants less than 1 centimetre (0.4 inch) high found in a number of genera, such as Eleocharis, Lipocarpha, and Abildgaardia, to the giant papyrus, which can attain a height of 5 metres (16 feet). Some species of Scleria, for example, the African S. boivinii, are scrambling vines up to 10 metres long. Unlike grasses, which have extensively exploited the woody habit in the bamboos, very few sedges are woody. A few species of Gahnia have woody stems, and the remarkable West African Microdracoides squamosus is a woody shrub up to 1.5 metres tall with a form resembling a miniature Joshua tree.

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All sedges have sheathing leaves, usually with blades; but members of a substantial number of genera, including Caustis, Eleocharis, Lepironia, Schoenoplectus, and Trichophorum, may be bladeless or nearly so. The sheaths are uniformly closed except in the small African genus Coleochloa. As in grasses, many genera have a small flap of tissue or fringe of hairs called a ligule that extends from the top of the sheath; the blade elongates above the ligule.

Leaf blades of sedges are highly variable in form. Most are linear, less than 1.5 centimetres wide, and flat or folded at the main veins. In a number of genera, especially those of dry or seasonally dry habitats, the leaf blades are stiff and circular in cross section or are strongly rolled inward. Sedges adapted to shady habitats, especially species of tropical forests and the deciduous forests of eastern North America and eastern Asia, may have expanded (broad) blades; this includes a number of species of Carex in temperate forests and species of Hypolytrum, Mapania, and Scleria in tropical woodlands. In some instances, including species of Carex such as the Southeast Asian C. scaposa and species of Mapania, the leaves may be contracted into a false petiole. The leaf of the remarkable genus Cymophyllus from the eastern United States appears to be a broad, flat blade without a sheath, midrib, or ligule; however, the apparent blade is evidently an expanded and opened bladeless sheath.

The flowers in Cyperaceae are highly reduced in size and complexity and are either unisexual or bisexual. The perianth (the calyx and corolla or the tepals) is either absent altogether or represented by up to six (though sometimes one) hairlike to stiff, sometimes barbed bristles. In Eriophorum, the bristles are extremely long, white to russet, and up to 50 in number. A few sedges, including most species of Fuirena (umbrella grass) and Oreobolus, have small scales instead of bristles. The flower usually has 3 stamens, although sometimes as few as 1 or 2 or very rarely (in the Australian genus Evandra) as many as 20. The single unilocular ovary has a terminal style with two or three stigmatic branches or very rarely one or up to as many as eight styles (in Evandra). Underlying each flower is a chaffy floral bract.

The flowers are arranged along a shortened axis, called a rachilla, that arises from the central stem of the plant. From a few to many flowers are arranged along the rachilla (rarely only a single flower), forming the spikelet, the basic unit of a sedge inflorescence. Spikelets are arranged into inflorescences of variable size and form: from small, tight heads in many genera to panicles, the usual form of the inflorescence; panicles as long as one metre or more can be found in some species of Cladium or Gahnia. Leaflike bracts often also underlie the major branches of the inflorescences. The reduction of an inflorescence to a single spikelet has occurred repeatedly in different evolutionary lines, usually in conjunction with a reduction in the size of the plant or as an adaptation to extreme habitats, or both. In some sedges, the spikelets are reduced to the point where they simulate a single flower (a pseudanthium), and these highly reduced flowerlike spikelets may then also be arranged, as if they were true flowers, into structures that simulate spikelets formed from true flowers. These structures are called pseudospikelets and become the basic units of compound inflorescences. The subfamily Mapanioidieae, an important tropical group, contains a number of examples of sedges with pseudospikelets.

The vast majority of sedges are wind-pollinated and have adaptations reflecting this fact, including abundant pollen production, nonsticky pollen, exserted anthers, and open inflorescences. In the few genera of Cyperaceae that are insect-pollinated, the inflorescences are contracted into dense heads, and the scales are usually white or sometimes yellow. If leaflike bracts are present in the inflorescence, these also may be white or yellow and are usually clustered together beneath the heads and arrayed radially at right angles to the stem. The coloration attracts the pollinator, and the arrangement of the flowers permits access to the most pollen per visit. Whitetop sedges (Rhynchospora section Dichromena), which occur from the southeastern United States to South America, are the best-known examples of insect-pollinated sedges. Species of Ascolepis and Ficinia in Africa, a number of tropical and subtropical species of Cyperus and Kyllinga, and even Cymophyllus fraseri in the eastern United States and Carex baldensis in the Alps have white heads (sometimes yellow or orange in Ascolepis and Ficinia) and are in all likelihood primarily insect-pollinated.

Fruits of sedges are most commonly achenes (nutlets), but in a few genera, notably Mapania and Scirpodendron, are single-seeded fleshy fruits called drupes. In many instances, the achenes have no obvious dispersal mechanism and are probably eaten and dispersed by birds and small mammals. In Carex, the achenes are enclosed in a sac called a perigynium, a modified tubular bract. The perigynium may tightly envelop the achene or it may be inflated like a bladder, flattened and scalelike, or even fleshy and edible. Many woodland species of Carex have food bodies (elaiosomes) at the base of the perigynium for ants, which disperse the perigynia. Species of Lepidosperma also have elaiosomes. In some species of Cyperus, the achenes are partly enclosed by the corky rachilla; at maturity the rachilla breaks apart to produce many rachilla segments and their attached achenes, which are then dispersed by water. When present, bristles may be barbed and cling to animal fur to disperse the nutlets, as in Rhynchospora, or they may be long and silky and act as parachutes for wind dispersal, as in Eriophorum and some species of Scirpus and Trichophorum.