Melinis P.Beauv.

Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades flat; ligule a ciliate rim. Inflorescence a panicle with capillary branches. Spikelets symmetrical in profile, slightly laterally compressed, glabrous or hairy; lower glume small or suppressed, never distant from the upper; upper glume as long as the spikelet, membranous to chartaceous, not becoming thinner at the tip (except M. ambigua), 7-nerved (except M. tenuissima), usually straight on the back, emarginate to bilobed, sometimes awned from the sinus; lower floret usually sterile, its lemma narrower than the upper glume and usually awned, the palea commonly absent (when present its keels usually scaberulous); upper lemma smaller than the lower, often deciduous before the rest of the spikelet, thinly cartilaginous, smooth, laterally compressed, its margins flat and ± enfolding the palea, acute. Caryopsis oblong.