Corynephorus P.Beauv.

Annuals (in Australia) or perennials, caespitose. Leaves: ligule an unfringed membrane; blade flat to convolute or involute. Inflorescences paniculate, spreading or contracted, with spikelets individual or clustered. Spikelets pedicellate, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets, with 2 bisexual florets; rachilla prolonged beyond uppermost floret, hirsute, with extension naked. Glumes 2, subequal, much exceeding florets and ±equalling lemma awns, awnless, keeled, scaberulous along upper part of keel, 1–3-nerved. Callus short and blunt or elongate and pointed, pilose. Lemmas 1-awned, of similar texture to glumes, soft, not hardening, grooved dorsally to take the awn, 5-nerved; awn dorsal from near base, brown and twisted in lower half, articulated near middle with a ring of pointed protuberances, whitish in upper half, apically clavate. Palea a little shorter than and clasped by lemma, membranous. Lodicules membranous. Stamens 2 or 3. Ovary glabrous. Caryopsis closely enveloped by, but not adhering to, lemma and palea; hilum short; endosperm soft.