Shortly stoloniferous annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades linear, flat; ligule membranous, truncate, minutely lacerate. Inflorescence often compact, composed of several short broad secund spikes alternating along a central axis; spikes deciduous at maturity. Spikelets several-many-flowered, strongly laterally compressed, subsessile, biseriate, closely overlapping, disarticulating between the florets but usually the whole spike falling before many florets have been shed; glumes unequal except in the terminal spikelet, keeled, persistent; lower glume of the lateral spikelets 1–5-nerved, asymmetrical; upper glumes and the lower glume of the terminal spikelet conspicuous, many-nerved, a third as long to longer than the spikelet, the acuminate tip often widely spreading; lemmas 3–7-nerved, keeled, chartaceous with a thinner patch on either side of the base of the keel, villous on the lower part of the keel and margins, the lateral nerves shorter than the lemma, obscure at the base, the tip cuspidate or mucronate. Grain elliptic-oblong, brown, shiny, enclosed in a pale-coloured adherent pericarp (removable when soaked), trigonous in cross section.
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