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Perennials, often robust, sometimes rhizomatous. Leaf blades linear, usually flat; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a panicle, loosely contracted to dense and spikelike, often plumose, branches usually whorled, bearing numerous spikelets. Spikelets with 1 floret; rachilla disarticulating above glumes, extension beyond floret absent or small and glabrous, rarely better developed and penicillate; glumes persistent, subequal or unequal with lower longer, narrowly lanceolate, much exceeding floret, lower glume 1-veined, upper glume 3-veined at base, apex finely acuminate or subulate; floret callus conspicuously bearded, hairs much exceeding floret; lemma ca. 1/2 as long as glumes, hyaline, 3–5-veined, awned, apex erose, denticulate or deeply 2-lobed; awn very slender, straight or almost so, arising from lemma back, apex or between teeth; palea 1/2 as long to slightly shorter than lemma. Stamens usually 3, rarely 1.
Tufted perennials. Leaf-blades flat. Panicle usually rather narrow and dense. Spikelets linear to lanceolate, acuminate; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes, not prolonged or only as a very short bristle; glumes persistent, subequal, linear-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, firmly membranous, keeled upwards, finely acute, the lower 1-nerved, the upper 1–3-nerved; lemma lanceolate to oblong, shorter than the glumes, hyaline, glabrous, 3–5-nerved, truncate-denticulate or ± bifid with the lobes acute or toothed, awned from the back or from the sinus of the lobes or from the tip; awn short, fine and straight; callus bearded with long white hairs, as long as or often much longer than the lemmas; palea as long as the lemma or shorter.
Spikelets 1-fld, articulated above the glumes; glumes subequal, acute or acuminate, the first usually a little the larger, lemma equaling or shorter than the glumes, inconspicuously 5-veined, tapering to an obtuse or truncate, erose tip, usually thin and membranous, subtended at base by white hairs arising from the callus, and bearing a slender dorsal awn; palea membranous, half to fully as long as the lemma; rachilla prolonged (in our native spp.) behind the palea as a slender, usually hairy, often inconspicuous bristle, perennials, often rhizomatous, with long narrow lvs and a loose and open to contracted and spike-like panicle. 150+, temp. and cool reg. Many of the plants at higher ploidy-levels are apomictic.
