Annual or perennial plants, rhizomatous or caespitose, bisexual. Culms usually terete. Leaves: ligule a ciliate membrane; blade flat or rolled, rarely folded, often ±setaceous (bristle-like), sometimes pungent, persistent, once-folded in bud, with bladder-like vesicles on the upper surface in a group of 7 species (and also sometimes in E. burkittii). Inflorescences paniculate, rarely a single raceme, usually terminal, usually eglandular. Spikelets pedicellate, laterally compressed, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets, with (1–) 2 bisexual florets; lemma and palea usually appressed, sometimes recurved or divergent. Glumes 2, usually ±equal, sometimes obliquely attached (i.e. separated by a conspicuous internode), shorter than to longer than the florets, awned or awnless, usually rounded or flattened on the back, (3–) 5–13 (–17)-nerved. Callus short, usually blunt, usually bearded with glabrous tip. Lemma awnless or mucronate or 1-awned, grooved (usually 2-grooved, i.e. bisulcate) or flattened, with a clear germination flap, (3–) 5–7-nerved, usually partly hairy with long white hairs, rarely glabrous or entirely hairy; awn non-geniculate. Palea usually similar to lemma in texture and indumentum. Lodicules fleshy, glabrous. Caryopsis ellipsoid, usually not grooved, longitudinally grooved in 5 species; hilum long-linear; pericarp thin, fused.
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Annual or perennial. Leaf blades mostly rolled. Panicle open, contracted or spikelike with solitary, pedicellate spikelets. Glumes subequal, rounded on the back, 1/2 as long to much exceeding the florets, papery with hyaline or scarious margins; floret callus short, obtuse; lemmas pilose, grooved or smooth, usually awned but sometimes merely acute; paleas usually similar to lemmas in texture and indumentum, entire or bidentate, keels rounded, usually distant, sometimes excurrent into awns, margins hyaline and embracing the caryopsis. Stamens 3, rarely 2. Caryopsis ± ellipsoid, dorsally compressed.
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