Juncaginaceae

Perennial, non-woody (herbaceous) plants of coastal saltmarshes, salt springs and calcium-rich wetlands, with small inconspicuous greenish flowers arranged in long narrow spikes or racemes at top of stem and long slender leaves that are mainly basal and wrap around the stem (are sheathing).

Individual flowers usually each producing both pollen and seeds, and borne on stalks with no bracts. Sepals and petals each 3, small, broad, scale-like, not petal-like in colour, size or texture. Stamens 6, their pollen-producing structures (anthers) facing outward, and their stalks very short and generally attached to the bases of the sepals and petals. Carpels 3 or 6, attached along their inner margin to a long erect central axis that may be very narrow or may be 3-winged. Ovaries 3 or 6, each with a single chamber; stigmas minutely feathery. Fruit capsules, eventually separating from each other and from the persistent central axis. Seeds cylindric.

Leaves long and narrow, all basal, with.out a terminal pore.

Stems erect.

Plants commonly produce cyanide.