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Annuals (rarely) or perennials (not in Australia), shortly caespitose or mat-forming, bisexual. Ligule a narrow ciliate membrane or a fringe of hairs. Inflorescence a slender, often curved, single spike, with spikelets secundly arranged; rachis crescentic in section, sometimes winged. Spikelets sessile, not noticeably compressed to dorsally compressed, 1–2-flowered (1-flowered in Australia), disarticulating above the glumes; rachilla terminating at bisexual floret or at reduced male or barren floret. Glumes 2, ±equal in length, exceeding the floret, very dissimilar (lower glume asymmetric, cymbiform, carinate, upper glume flat), awnless, 1-nerved. Callus short, pointed. Lemma entire or notched, muticous to aristulate, carinate to rounded, 2-nerved, ciliate on the nerves. Hilum short.
Small tufted annuals or perennials, with slender wiry culms. Leaf-blades usually narrow, stiff, often convolute; ligule a very short membranous rim. Inflorescence a solitary terminal slender curved 1-sided spike not much wider than the culm, often embraced below by the uppermost leaf-sheath, the spikelets appressed to the tough narrow rhachis (less so in M. caffra). Spikelets 1-flowered (without rhachilla-extension), slightly dorsally compressed, awnless; glumes lanceolate-oblong, boat-shaped, as long as the spikelet or the lower a little shorter, 1-nerved, acute, the lower keeled, the upper rounded on the back; lemma shorter than and enclosed by the glumes, hyaline, ovate to broadly elliptic, ciliate on the nerves, obtuse. Caryopsis oblong to obovate-oblong.
Spikelets 1-flowered without rhachilla extension or with a second well developed male floret (rarely a third rudiment), subterete or subcylindrical, alternate in 2 rows on a tough axis, disarticulating above the glumes; glumes subequal, 1-nerved, both or only the superior deciduous, firmly membranous to thinly coriaceous, enclosing the floret(s), the inferior keeled, the superior dorsally rounded; lemma thinly membranous, keeled, acute to 2-lobed at the apex, awnless but sometimes mucronulate.
Inflorescence a single raceme (rarely 2) bearing inclined or pectinate spikelets on a semiterete (crescentic in section) rhachis.
Caryopsis ellipsoid.
