Members can be recognized as large marsh herbs with alternate two-ranked leaves and a brownish compact spike of unisexual flowers.

[3] The earliest fossils, including pollen and flowers, have been recovered from late Cretaceous deposits.

The family then consisted of one genus (Typha), totalling a dozen species of perennial plants of wet habitats.

More recently, the APG III system of 2009 included a second genus, Sparganium, in this family.

[5] The Cronquist system, of 1981, also recognized such a family and placed it in the order Typhales, in the subclass Commelinidae in class Liliopsida in division Magnoliophyta.