Restiaceae
A natural order of usually perennial herbs, tufted or with horizontal or creeping rhizomes; they are mostly natives of South-west Africa or Australia, a few are found in New Zealand, one in Chili, and one in Cochin China. Flowers dicecious, rarely moncecious, very rarely hermaphrodite, in spikelets; perianth regular; segments six, rarely reduced to five, four, or three, glumaceous, rigid, scarious, or hyaline, more or less distinctly biseriate; stamens in male flowers three, filaments fili-form; ovary of females one to three-celled; inflorescence variable. Fruit dry, often small, nut-like or capsular, terete, compressed, or triquetrous. Leaves sometimes few, radical, long, cyperoid, frequently nearly all reduced to sheaths. Stems rigid, simple or branched, erect, flexuous, or variously twisted. The order comprises twenty genera, and about 230 species, few of which are of any horticultural value. Examples: Restio, Willdenowia.