Spikelets 2-nate, those of each pair very similar in shape or the pedicelled more or less reduced or quite rudimentary, different in sex (occasionally some homogamous in the same inflorescence), on the fragile articulate rhachis of racemosely arranged or panicled spike-like racemes; joints and pedicels stout, posticously contiguous or almost so; articulation at a right angle to the rhachis, tips hollowed out, not appendaged. Sessile spikelets: Florets 2, lower reduced to a barren valve, upper hermaphrodite, awnless. Glumes equal, coriaceous or more or less chartaceous or the upper membranous, lower flat on the back, smooth, 2-keeled, narrowly inflexed along the margins, muticous, upper boat-shaped, keeled. Valves hyaline, awnless, of lower floret 2-, of upper 3-nerved. Valvule of upper floret hyaline, 2-nerved; lodicules 2, cuneate. Stamens 3. Stigmas laterally exserted. Grain oblong, dorsally compressed; scutellum extending beyond the middle. —Tall, coarse grasses; blades very long, hard, flat; ligules very short, membranous; racemes rather stout and stiff, more or less distinctly dorsiventral and sometimes submoniliform owing to the constrictions between the swollen joints and pedicels.