Annuals. Leaf-blades flat, crinkled on one margin; ligule a ciliate fringe. Inflorescence a cylindrical spike-like panicle. Spikelets pale green or purplish, disarticulating beneath each floret, the lower floret barren; glumes thinly membranous, 3-nerved, unequal, the lower 1/2 as long as the spikelet and long-awned, the upper as long as the spikelet and shortly awned; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, thinly membranous, 5–7-nerved; lower palea becoming thickened and hardened; upper lemma thinly coriaceous, 5-nerved, 2-lobed, the lobes awned, with 1 or 2 tufts of hair below each lobe and awned from the sinus; callus short, truncate; palea narrowly winged, the wings terminating in clavate appendages, glabrous; stamens 3. Caryopsis lanceolate, glabrous, the hilum linear.