Annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades broad, flat, with cross-veins, sometimes with a false petiole; ligule obscure, membranous. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle. Spikelets all alike, hermaphrodite, 1-many-flowered, in the former the fertile floret succeeded by 1 or more empty or ♂ florets, falling entire or the rhachilla disarticulating below each floret; glumes herbaceous, shorter than the lemmas, 3–7-nerved; lemmas similar to the glumes in texture, 3–9-nerved, usually glabrous, awnless or shortly awned from the tip; palea hyaline; lodicules 2, cuneate; stamens 2–3; stigmas 2. Grain with small embryo and oval hilum; starch grains mixed.Leaf anatomy: chlorenchyma diffuse; bundle-sheaths double; silica-bodies cross- or dumb-bell-shaped; 2-celled hairs balanoform; stomatal subsidiary cells triangular. Embryo centothecoïd. Chromosomes small, basic number 12.Genera ± 6; throughout the tropics, in forest shade.