Spikelets lanceolate to ovate-oblong or oblong and acute to obtuse in dorsal view, obliquely lanceolate to oblong and slightly saccate at the base in profile, slightly convex in front, flattened and with a deep narrow median groove on the back, falling entire, in clusters or sometimes solitary on the rhachis of contracted spike-like panicles; lower floret male or barren; upper floret perfect. Glumes hyaline to very thinly membranous, loose; lower broadly ovate to rotundate, obtuse, finely 3-nerved, one-fourth to one-third the length of the spikelet; upper broadly ovate- to elliptic-oblong, obtuse, finely 3- to sub-5-nerved, one-third to half the length of the spikelet. Lower floret equalling the spikelet: valve corresponding in size and outline to the spikelet as seen from the back, slightly saccate at the base, narrowly and deeply grooved down the middle of the back, firmly membranous but hyaline in the groove and there easily splitting, 5–13-nerved; valvule as long as the valve, lanceolate- to ovate-oblong, two-keeled, deeply concave and hyaline between the keels, the latter and the inflexed margins becoming indurated and spreading. Upper floret as long as or more often slightly shorter than the lower, lanceolate to ovate and acute or acuminate in back view, obliquely lanceolate in profile, at maturity sunken between and embraced by the hardened keels and flaps of the valvule of the lower floret: valve thinly crustaceous at maturity, 5-nerved, finely granular or delicately transversely rugose; valvule of similar texture to the valve, embraced except towards the tips by the narrow margins of the valve. Lodicules 2, minute, glabrous. Stamens 3. Styles distinct; stigmas laterally exserted. Caryopsis elliptic-oblong, dorsally compressed; hilum subbasal; scutellum equalling half the length of the caryopsis. —Annual or perennial grasses; leaf-blades linear; spikelets of the lower clusters supported or replaced by fine soft bristles or those of the upper or of all clusters bare, in the latter case the axis of the clusters sometimes terminating in a bristle.