Spikelets all alike, in pairs, one sessile, the other pediceled, subtended usually by a ring of hairs; rachis of the raceme eventually disarticulating; glumes equal or nearly so, glabrous to villous, awnless; lemmas 2, hyaline, shorter than or equaling the glume, the lower one sterile, the fertile one ending in a long awn; tall, coarse, tufted perennials with long lvs and long terminal panicles in later summer, these usually conspicuously silky (except in E. strictus) from the hairs subtending the spikelets. 25, warm Amer. and s. Eurasia