Oropetium Trin.

Small tufted perennials with fibrous or papery remains of old leaf-sheaths at the base, rarely annuals. Leaf-blades linear, flat, rolled or folded, obtuse to finely acute, sparsely to densely pilose or subglabrous. Inflorescence a single slender straight, curved or coiled, terminal spike bearing spikelets embedded in hollows arranged alternately in 2 opposite, subopposite or adjacent ranks; rhachis slender, spongy or herbaceous, tough or fracturing horizontally into segments of 1–4(–8) spikelets. Spikelets 1–2-flowered (1-flowered in East African species); lower glume adaxial, minute, hyaline and nerveless, rarely absent (resembling the upper in the terminal spikelet); upper glume abaxial, usually appressed to the rhachis, exceeding and covering the floret, lanceolate, herbaceous and tough, (1–)3-nerved, acute to finely awned; lemma elliptic, oblong or obovate when flattened, membranous, 1–3-nerved, keeled, apex 2-toothed and mucronate, the mucro rarely produced into an awn. Caryopsis elliptic-oblong or obovate.