KEY TO FAMILIES 



h. Fruit a capsule; stigmas 3 

 i. Fruit an achene or utricle; stigmas mostly 2 

 (h) Flowers perfect or monoecious 

 (i) Flowers dioecious 

 (y) Ovary inferior 

 m. Petal-like sepals forming a tube; style 1 

 n. Styles 2; tube lacking 

 (b) Stamens more numerous than the sepals 

 \. Sepals 4 ; stamens 6 

 y. Sepals S, or apparently so, often petal-like 



(x) Stamens apparently numerous; fruit a capsule 

 (y) Stamens 6-S ; fruit an achene 

 2. Sepals absent, or occasionally very minute 



a. Flowers in small heads, surrounded by 5 petal-like parts 



b. Flowers in spikes or spikelets 



(1) Spike fleshy, with a petal-like spathe 



(2) Flowers in papery spikelets with scales 



(a) Flower enclosed in 2 scales, stem hollow, round 



(b) Flower with a single scale; stem solid, mostly triangular 



