Annuals or short-lived perennials, caespitose, bisexual. Ligule a short ciliate membrane. Inflorescences digitate, with spikelets secundly arranged. Spikelets subsessile to pedicellate, laterally compressed, with 1 bisexual floret, disarticulating above the glumes, with glumes usually persistent, not disarticulating between the florets; rachilla prolonged beyond the bisexual floret, modified with spongy tissue to form a conspicuous thickened internode, separating the 3–8 clustered sterile florets from the basal bisexual floret. Glumes 2, very unequal, shorter than the spikelet but the longer glume exceeding the basal lemma, awnless, carinate, 1-nerved. Callus long, similar in length to lemma body, pungent, densely pubescent. Basal floret: lemma with 1 awn, with midnerve ribbed, 3-nerved with lateral nerves submarginal; lodicules absent. Hilum short. Incomplete lemmas large, winged, awned, with lower lemmas broad, flaring and 7-nerved.
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