Perennials, caespitose, bisexual. Leaves scattered along culms; ligule membranous, eciliate or ciliolate, truncate to obtuse. Inflorescence paniculate, open (loose and spreading) or contracted. Spikelets solitary, comprising 1 fertile floret, overlapping and arranged all around the short panicle branches, without or rarely with a barren rachilla extension, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes. Glumes unequal to subequal, persistent, 1-nerved, 1-keeled, smooth or scaberulous on keel, glabrous, hyaline or membranous, shorter than to longer than lemma; lower glume with primary vein scaberulous; upper glume lanceolate or elliptic, longer than to slightly shorter than floret, primary vein scaberulous. Callus evident, pubescent or pilose. Lemma acute to acuminate, entire or slightly 2-lobed, thinly coriaceous (distinctly firmer than glumes), keeled, faintly 5-nerved, involute on margins, 1-awned; awn subapical to dorsal, curved to geniculate. Palea slightly shorter than lemma; nerves glabrous to scaberulous. Lodicules membranous, glabrous. Stamens 1–3. Caryopsis oblong, dorsally compressed, longitudinally grooved. Hilum short. [See also Green (1994: 463).]
Some species (e.g. Long Hair Plumegrass Dichelachne crinita) are used as an ornamental grass (e.g. in rockeries, garden borders), for landscaping and revegetation.
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