Herbs perennial or annual. Leaves in a rosette, grasslike, linear, occasionally thinly filiform, often thin and transparent, fenestrate, base sheathing. Inflorescences capitate, globose to ovoid; scapes thin, twisted, angled, base surrounded by a bladeless, tubular sheath. Flowers 2- or 3-merous, bracteate, with both sexes usually in same head. Male flowers: sepals 2 or 3, connate or free; petals 2 or 3, often inconspicuous; stamens 6. Female flowers: sepals 2 or 3, free or connate; petals absent to 4, free; ovary (1--)3-loculed; ovules 1 per locule, basal; style 1, 1--3-branched. Fruit a capsule, thin, loculicidal. Seeds small; testa usually reticulate and prickly; endosperm with abundant starch grains.

Ma Weiliang. 1997. Eriocaulaceae. In: Wu Kuo-fang, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 13(3): 20--63.

Ten genera and ca. 1150 species: mainly in tropical and subtropical regions; one genus and 35 species (13 endemic) in China.

(Authors: Ma Weiliang (马炜梁), Zhang Zhixiang (张志翔); Thomas Stützel)