1	"Spikelets with several to many flowers producing nuts, usually only 1 to 2 lowest glumes empty"	2
1	"Spikelets or pseudospikelets with 1 to 2 flowers producing nuts, usually several to many empty glumes at the base of the spikelet or pseudospikelet"	14
2	"Culms noded and leafy; hypogynous bristles or scales present; robust perennials"	3
2	"Culms nodeless, leaves all basal (except occasionally in weak, branched, aquatic Isolepis species); hypogynous bristles or scales present or absent"	4
3	"Spikelets 1–2.5 cm long; inflorescence branches not scabrous; hypogynous bristles shorter than or equalling nut"	Bolboschoenus
3	"Spikelets less than 1 cm long; inflorescence branches scabrous; hypogynous bristles much longer than nut"	Scirpus
4	"Style-base enlarged and persistent on nut; inflorescence not subtended by leafy bracts; leaves reduced to sheaths, glabrous; hypogynous bristles usually present"	Eleocharis
4	"Style-base enlarged or not, but not persistent on nut"	5
5	"Hypogynous bristles present"	6
5	"Hypogynous bristles absent"	7
6	"Nuts smooth, epidermal cells isodiametric to narrowly oblong; rhizome elongate, creeping or ascending; glumes entire or minutely notched, or emarginate to bifid at the apex; hypogynous bristles present; culms solitary or a few-fascicled, nodeless above the base; perennial"	Schoenoplectus
6	"Nuts smooth or transversely rugulose to sharply ridged, epidermal cells narrowly oblong to linear; rhizome very short and hidden among the culm-bases, or shortly lying, or elongate and creeping; glumes entire at the apex; hypogynous bristles present or absent; culms tufted or solitary, nodeless or 1(–3)-noded above the base; annual or perennial"	Schoenoplectiella
7	"Style based enlarged"	Fimbristylis
7	"Style based not enlarged"	8
8	"Style 2- fid"	9
8	"Style 3-fid"	11
9	"Glumes distichously arranged in spikelet"	Cyperus
9	"Glumes spirally arranged in spikelet (distichous in Isolepis levynsiana)"	10
10	"Involucral bracts glume-like or leaf-like, from shorter than inflorescence to twice as long as it (to 1.5 cm long); spikelets 2–8 mm long"	Isolepis
10	"Involucral bracts culm-like, usually at least 4 times as long as inflorescence (to 25 cm long); spikelets 5–15 mm long"	Schoenoplectiella
11	"Glumes distichously arranged in spikelet (spirally arranged in Cyperus hamulosus, and then plant curry-scented)"	Cyperus
11	"Glumes spirally arranged in spikelet (distichous in Isolepis levynsiana); plant not curry-scented"	12
12	"Nuts transversely wrinkled and/or stout perennials"	Schoenoplectiella
12	"Nuts variously marked but never transversely wrinkled; small annuals or perennials"	13
13	"Rhizomatous perennial with thick and woody rhizome to 1 cm diam.  (Ficinia nodosa) or small tufted annual (Ficinia marginata); nut with a small, sometimes deciduous, basal lobed disk"	Ficinia
13	"Tufted annual or perennials, rhizome absent or filiform; nut without a basal disk"	Isolepis
14	"Female flowers enclosed in sac-like utricle"	Carex
14	"Flowers not enclosed in a utricle"	15
15	"Inflorescence a sessile ovoid or hemispherical head of pseudospikelets; female flowers apparently terminal, always only 1 per pseudospikelet (floral unit) with 10–25 stamen-subtending or sterile glumes below it"	Chorizandra
15	"Inflorescence not as above; female or bisexual flowers lateral and axillary, one to many in a spikelet, often with a few stamen-subtending or sterile glumes above or below them"	16
16	"A hypogynous disk or 1 or 2 hyaline scales or 2–6 hypogynous bristles or scales present at base of nut (not always falling with nut)"	17
16	"Hypogynous bristles, scales and disk absent"	30
17	"Nut more or less enclosed in 2, or occasionally 1, hyaline scales; small annual with inflorescence of 1–4 ovoid clustered heads with numerous spikelets"	"Cyperus {Cyperus leptocarpus}"
17	"Nut without hyaline scales; inflorescence various"	18
18	"Style simple or 2-fid"	19
18	"Style 3- to 8-fid"	20
19	"Style-base not differentiated or enlarged or persistent; leaves with a membranous ligule; dry forests or woodlands of the far east"	"Cyathochaeta {Cyathochaeta diandra}"
19	"Style-base differentiated, enlarged, and persistent; leaves without a ligule; damp sites in the north-east only"	"Rhynchospora {Rhynchospora brownii}"
20	"Hypogynous disk present at base of nut"	"Cladium {Cladium procerum}"
20	"Hypogynous bristles or scales present at base of nut"	21
21	"Upper internodes of rachilla prominently zigzagged"	Schoenus
21	"Upper internodes of rachilla straight"	22
22	"Hypogynous scales 3, flat, antrorsely plumose below, apex with 1 long bristle-like lobe, often with 2 smaller flat lateral lobes; both aerial and basal spikelets produced"	"Trianoptiles {Trianoptiles solitaria}"
22	"Hypogynous scales or bristles 2–6; if scales, flat but not plumose or 3-lobed; spikelets aerial only"	23
23	"Style-base persistent, often enlarged in fruit"	24
23	"Style-base deciduous"	27
24	"Inflorescence head-like, globose, terminal on long, wiry culm, and plants forming large tussocks or inflorescence head-like, hemispherical to obovoid and plants < 40 cm high"	25
24	"Inflorescence panicle-like, umbel-like, or spike-like"	26
25	"Large tussock-forming perennial; culms often > 1 m long; ligule membranous and ciliate; inflorescence globose; hypogynous bristles 2 or 3, filiform, antrorsely scabrous"	"Gymnoschoenus {Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus}"
25	"Small tufted perennial; culms 14–40 cm high; ligule absent; inflorescence condensed-compound and appearing head-like, hemispherical to obovoid; hypogynous bristles 6, plumose"	"Chaetospora {Chaetospora turbinata}"
26	"Hypogynous bristles 6, as long as, or longer than the nut and falling with it"	Carpha
26	"Hypogynous bristles 2–4, much shorter than the nut, not falling with it"	"Netrostylis {Netrostylis capillaris}"
27	"Inflorescence condensed-compound and appearing head-like, hemispherical to obovoid; hypygynous bristles flat and not inflated, plumose"	"Chaetospora {Chaetospora turbinata}"
27	"Inflorescence panicle-like, umbel-like, spike-like or consisting of a single spikelet; hypygynous bristles or scales inflated (in Lepidosperma) or flat and not inflated, glabrous, scabrous or ciliate"	28
28	"Glumes spirally arranged in the spikelet; hypogynous scales inflated"	Lepidosperma
28	"Glumes ± distichously arranged in the spikelet; hypogynous scales flat, not thickened"	29
29	"Hypogynous scales persistent on rachilla after nut falls; leaf with pseudopetiole; alpine, wet heaths and bogs"	Oreobolus
29	"Hypogynous scales falling with the nut; leaf without pseudopetiole; lowland heaths and woodlands"	"Tricostularia {Tricostularia pauciflora}"
30	"Style simple or 2-fid"	31
30	"Style 3- to 8-fid"	32
31	"Style-base enlarged, persistent"	"Rhynchospora {Rhynchospora brownii}"
31	"Style-base not enlarged or persistent"	Cyperus
32	"Upper internodes of rachilla zigzagged"	Schoenus
32	"Upper internodes of rachilla straight"	33
33	"Annual; inflorescence of 1–4 ovoid clustered heads with numerous spikelets"	"Cyperus {Cyperus leptocarpus}"
33	"Perennials; inflorescence panicle-like, spike-like, or occasionally reduced to a few clustered spikelets"	34
34	"Leaves reduced to blades no more than 1 cm long"	35
34	"Leaves with well-developed blades to 1 m long or more"	37
35	"Persistent style-base not separated from body of nut by a constriction"	Machaerina
35	"Persistent style-base separated from body of nut by a constriction"	36
36	"Leaves without a ligule"	Caustis
36	"Leaves with a ligule"	"Netrostylis {Netrostylis capillaris}"
37	"Leaves 2-ranked, flattened laterally (strictly isobilaterally)"	Machaerina
37	"Leaves 3-ranked, flattened dorsiventrally"	38
38	"Nut borne on inconspicuous hypogynous disk (disk may stay on rachilla rather than fall with nut)"	"Cladium {Cladium procerum}"
38	"Nut not borne on a hypogynous disk"	39
39	"Spikelets disarticulating as a unit from axis at maturity"	Cyperus
39	"Spikelets persistent, nuts falling separately from glumes at maturity"	40
40	"Leaves with a ligule"	Gahnia
40	"Leaves without a ligule"	"Netrostylis {Netrostylis capillaris}"