''Scleria'' is a genus of
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...
s in the sedge family,
Cyperaceae
The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...
. They are known commonly as nutrushes.
[''Scleria''.]
Integrated Taxonomic Information System. They are distributed throughout the
tropics
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
, and some species have ranges extending into
temperate
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...
areas.
[''Scleria''.]
Flora of China. There are about 200 species.
[
]
Etymology
The genus name ''Scleria'' is Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
, meaning "hardness", in reference to the tough seeds.
Description
Plants of this genus are diverse in appearance. These are mostly perennial, but sometimes annual. Some have rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...
s. They produce solitary stems or clumps of many. They are a few centimeters tall to well over one meter. They have few leaves or many. The inflorescence
In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...
is variable, ranging from a single spikelet to over 100.[''Scleria''.]
Flora of North America. Despite the variety, examination of the fruits and subterranean structures is required to distinguish species.[
]
References
External links
*Camelbeke, K. and P. Goetghebeur. (2002)
The genus ''Scleria'' (Cyperaceae) in Colombia. An updated checklist.
''Caldasia'' 24(2), 259–68.
Cyperaceae genera
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{Cyperaceae-stub