Annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades narrow, flat; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a loose or contracted panicle. Spikelets all alike, laterally compressed or subterete, several–many-flowered, the uppermost florets reduced; rhachilla disarticulating below each floret; glumes persistent, shorter than the lowest lemma, often scarious on the margins; lemmas herbaceous, 5–9-nerved, ± 2-toothed with a straight or recurved awn from just below the hyaline tip; palea hyaline, usually shorter than the lemma; lodicules 2; stamens 3 or 2; styles 2, inserted laterally below a hairy appendage crowning the ovary. Grain with small embryo and linear hilum; starch grains simple, rounded. Leaf anatomy: chlorenchyma diffuse; bundle-sheaths double; silica-bodies oblong; 2-celled hairs absent; stomatal subsidiary cells mostly parallel-sided. Embryo poöïd, but without an epiblast. Chromosomes large, basic number 7.