Annuals or perennials with decumbent or creeping culms. Leaf-blades linear to narrowly ovate; ligule membranous. Inflorescence an open or somewhat contracted panicle. Spikelets obliquely obovate in profile, strongly laterally compressed (weakly so in C. multinode); glumes thinly membranous, 1/2–4/5 as long as the spikelet, obtuse; lower floret barren, its lemma as long as the spikelet, obtuse or rarely mucronate; upper lemma as long as the spikelet, subcoriaceous to crustaceous, smooth to punctate, gibbous, crested near the tip, the margins inrolled and clasping only the edges of the palea; palea tip reflexed. Caryopsis laterally compressed, asymmetrical, hemiovoid.