17. Section Multiflorae (Kunth) Mack.
Plants monoecious, with short or poorly developed rhizomes,
forming dense tufts or clumps. Vegetative stems usually poorly
developed, reduced to basal clusters of leaves. Flowering stems erect, shorter
than to longer than the leaves, sharply to bluntly trigonous,
unwinged, firm, glabrous, often somewhat roughened on
the angles near the tip, light brown to dark brown at the base. Leaves basal
and on the basal half of the stems, glabrous, the basal leaves reduced to nearly
bladeless sheaths. Leaf blades light green to less commonly yellowish green,
the margins minutely roughened or toothed, flat or somewhat folded near the
base. Leaf sheaths truncate or shallowly to strongly convex at the tip, the
ventral side thin, papery, white or nearly so, often cross-wrinkled and
breaking up at maturity, the lowermost sheath bases light brown to dark brown.
Inflorescences compound, with numerous spikes, these sometimes difficult to
differentiate, all similar, sessile or along short branches, and grouped into a
dense, headlike spike or narrow panicle, the
lowermost bracts hairlike, green, mostly shorter than
the inflorescence, lacking a sheath. Spikes sessile,
inconspicuously staminate toward the tip and pistillate
toward the base, oblong-elliptic to nearly circular in outline, with 8 to
numerous densely spaced perigynia, these ascending to
mostly spreading at maturity. Staminate and pistillate
scales similar, ovate, the tip pointed or awned,
white or sometimes light yellowish brown tinged with a green or straw-colored
midrib. Perigynia thin-walled, flattened ventrally
and somewhat rounded dorsally, triangular to ovate or nearly circular in
outline, tapered to a flattened beak with minute teeth along the margins and 2
narrow teeth at the tip, the base very short stalked below the fruit, the sides
angled to narrowly winged, glabrous, shiny, green, turning yellowish brown to
brown at maturity. Styles withering during fruit development,
jointed to the main body of the fruit, which is not or minutely beaked at
maturity. Stigmas 2. Fruits
oblong-ovate to broadly elliptic in outline, biconvex and somewhat flattened in
cross-section, yellowish brown to reddish brown, shiny. About 15 species, North America, South America, Asia.