Annual. Leaf-blades linear; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a panicle, its branches sometimes simple and reduced to racemes. Spikelets laterally compressed, disarticulating between the florets; glumes persistent, slightly unequal, 3-nerved, mucronate or short-awned; lemmas shortly exserted from the glumes, membranous, keeled, awned from the entire apex; paleas shorter than the lemmas, the keels ciliate below the middle and both drawn out into a stiff awn. Grain narrowly oblong with a free membranous pericarp, trigonous in cross section.