Usually perennials, or annuals or biennials, tufted. Culms erect or geniculate, herbaceous and hollow; flowering culms 25–150 cm high. Leaves: basal sheaths glabrous; ligule hairless, 1.2–6 mm long, entire or lacerate; blade flat or folded or involute, 14–50 cm long, 0.8–5 mm wide. Panicles open or dense, 7–40 cm long, 1–8 (–15) cm wide; branches alternate or distichous or whorled, 2–15 cm long, shorter than rachis, erect or spreading or divaricate. Spikelets overlapping to well separated, dorsally to laterally compressed, 5–18 mm long, 4–14-flowered, with 3–13 bisexual. Glumes unequal in length; lower glume lanceolate, 0.9–3.6 mm long; upper glume 1.8–5.2 mm long, acute or obtuse, muticous. Basal lemma oblong to elliptic, 1.8–6.1 mm long, notched or minutely bilobed, aristulate or awned, carinate or rounded on the back (at least in the lower part), pubescent or silky, with appressed or erect hairs on the submargins and usually on the midnerve. Palea acute. Caryopsis dorsally compressed, evenly thin, biconvex or rectangular in T.S.
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