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Racemes spike-like, cartilaginous, cylindric, the rachis readily disarticulating, each internode thickened distally and concave at its summit; spikelets paired, the fertile one sessile, closely appressed to the hollow of the adjacent internode, its first glume coriaceous and pitted or wrinkled; sterile spikelet smaller, its stout pedicel appressed to the rachis; smooth perennials; growing in small tufts, the slender solitary racemes resembling the pistillate portion of Tripsacum. 12, mainly trop.
Sessile spikelet convex on the back; callus truncate with a prominent central peg; inferior glume crustaceous or thinly coriaceous, nearly always winged towards the apex, 2-keeled in the inferior half, smooth, rugose or areolar, usually glabrous; superior glume awnless; inferior floret reduced to a hyaline lemma, with or without a palea; superior lemma entire and awnless.
Inflorescence a single raceme, sometimes solitary and terminal but commonly aggregated into a spathate false panicle; racemes cylindrical or dorsiventrally flattened, the spikelets paired or occasionally in triplets of 2 sessile and 1 pedicelled; internodes clavate, often squatly so, shorter than the sessile spikelet, transversely articulated.
Pedicelled spikelet well developed and male, or vestigial, awnless; pedicel clavate or foliaceous, oblong or curved, sometimes auriculate at the summit.
Basal leaf sheaths often laterally compressed; ligule a short membrane; leaf laminas linear, flat, rarely filiform.
Caryopsis oblong, dorsally compressed.
Perennials, often tall.
