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Spikelets few-to several-flowered, with one fertile floret and one or two rudi-mentary florets above it, the second floret often staminate and sometimes perfect; glumes 1-nerved, the first narrow, the second much broader, twice as long as the first, or both broad, similar and subequal; fertile lemma 3-nerved, glabrous or bearded at the base, glabrous or pilose on the margins and sometimes pilose across the back, the tip variously lobed or dentate, the nerves usually excurrent in short awns; rudiment reduced to 3 awns or glumaceous, lobed or dentate with 3 usually conspicuous awns.
Spikelets with 1 perfect fl and 1 or more sterile vestiges, articulated above the glumes, inserted in 2 rows on one side of a narrow flat rachis; glumes unequal, narrow, 1-veined, acuminate to awn-pointed; fertile lemma rounded on the back, 3-veined, the lateral veins marginal or submarginal, usually excurrent below the tip into a short awn; vestige stipitate, reduced to an empty 3-awned lemma; usually tufted, the relatively short spikes 1–many, racemose on a common axis. 40, New World.
