7. Fimbristylis Vahl
(Kral, 1971)
Plants annual or
perennial. Aerial stems few to many per plant, erect to spreading, unbranched,
usually strongly ribbed. Leaves basal and often 1–2 along the lower
stems, the sheath apices thin, scarious, the margins entire or short-fringed,
the leaf blades 0.5–2.0 mm wide, spreading to ascending, with usually
strongly ridged veins, the margins curled inward or flat. Inflorescences
terminal, subtended by 2 to several leaflike bracts, composed of 2–13
spikelets, these stalked and/or sessile in irregular umbels or headlike
clusters. Florets few to many per spikelet, several-ranked in an overlapping
spiral pattern, perfect. Perianth (bristles or scales) absent. Stamens
1–3. Styles usually expanded at the base during flowering but not
persisting on the fruit as a tubercle. Stigmas 2–3. Ovaries and fruits
naked, without a perigynium (saclike covering). Fruits 3-angled, somewhat
flattened (biconvex), or nearly circular in cross-section. Two hundred to 250
species, widely distributed in tropical and warm-temperate regions of both the
northern and southern hemispheres.