2. Bulbostylis Kunth

(Kral, 1971)

Eighty to 120 species, widely distributed in tropical and warm-temperate regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Bulbostylis has been treated as a subgenus of Fimbristylis by some authors. Criteria for maintaining these groups as separate genera were summarized by Kral (1971) and Tucker (1987). For the Missouri species, the most visible difference separating the two genera is the persistent, expanded style base on the fruit of Bulbostylis, which appears as a minute, peglike cap at the tip of the fruit.