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Spikelets usually paired on the rachis of the spike, one member sessile and fully developed, the other pedicellate and usually ± reduced (or even obsolete); normal spikelets alternate and laterally appressed to the articulate rachis, the rachis-joint and spikelet commonly falling as a unit; normal spikelet with firm glumes, 2 very thin, membranous lemmas, and no palea, the lower lemma empty and awnless, the upper subtending a perfect fl and usually awned from near the base; low, decumbent or creeping grasses with lanceolate or lance-ovate lvs cordate-clasping at base, and with 2–many simple or often branched, usually subdigitately arranged spikes. 7, warm Old World.
Annuals or perennials with slender, often trailing, culms. Leaf-blades broad, commonly lanceolate, cordate and amplexicaul at the base; ligule membranous. Inflorescence composed of slender subdigitate racemes, their internodes filiform to linear. Sessile spikelet laterally compressed; callus truncate; lower glume chartaceous to coriaceous, rounded on the back, with or without lateral keels, often scabrid or muricate; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper floret with hyaline subentire lemma bearing a glabrous geniculate awn from low down on the back. Caryopsis terete. Pedicelled spikelet variable, from as large as the sessile to quite suppressed.
Sessile spikelet laterally compressed, with silvery-white appressed hairs at the base, the callus short, truncate; inferior glume chartaceous to coriaceous, rounded on the back, with or without lateral keels; inferior floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; superior floret fertile; fertile lemma bifid almost to the base and with a glabrous, geniculate sub-basal awn; anthers 2.Pedicelled spikelet absent or much reduced.
Racemes in subdigitate groups, slender, ± exserted from the spatheoles; peduncles longer or shorter than the racemes, erect at maturity; internodes and pedicels delicate, filiform, long-ciliate on both margins.
Leaf sheaths slightly inflated; ligule membranous; leaf laminas slightly cordate and semi-amplexicaul at the base, pilose with bulbous-based hairs at least below, usually becoming ciliate.
Slender annuals; culms geniculate, often trailing and rooting at the decumbent nodes; internodes pilose.
