Cyperaceae, sedge family of monocotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the order Poales. The Cyperaceae are grasslike herbaceous plants found especially in wet regions throughout the world. The Cyperaceae, among the 10 largest families of flowering plants, contain about 5,000 species and, depending on the classification used, between 70 and 115 genera. The members are distributed throughout all the continents except Antarctica. Although there is a large number of species in Arctic, temperate, and tropical regions, the diversity of genera is far greater in tropical regions. Many species of sedges that occur in northern latitudes have circumpolar distributions. Species occurring ...(100 of 4369 words)