Perennials, caespitose, bisexual. Leaves: ligule a fringe of hairs; blade rolled in bud. Inflorescence a single raceme, or rarely with branches subdigitately arranged, with spikelets secundly arranged. Spikelets subsessile or shortly pedicellate, laterally compressed or terete, with 1–4 bisexual florets, disarticulating above the glumes, not disarticulating between the florets; rachilla prolonged beyond the bisexual florets with incomplete florets. Glumes 2, very unequal to ±equal, shorter than the spikelet or ±equalling the florets, awnless, carinate; lower glume 1–9-nerved; upper glume 7–16-nerved. Callus blunt. Lemmas 3-lobed, deeply cleft, 1–3-awned, decidedly firmer than the glumes, coriaceous, rounded on the back, 3–11-nerved, basally hairy; awns a terminal extension of the median lobe or of all three lobes. Grain longitudinally grooved; hilum short; pericarp free.
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