The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large: botanists have described some 5,500 known species in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" with over 2,000 species.

Monocotyledons, commonly referred to as monocots, are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of the major groups into which the flowering plants have traditionally been divided; the rest of the flowering plants have two cotyledons and are classified as dicotyledons, or dicots.