Perennial herbs. Leaf-blades not disarticulating from the sheath. Inflorescence a panicle, usually ± contracted, terminating the leafy culm or rarely borne upon a separate leafless culm. Spikelets 4–6-flowered, the lower ♂, the uppermost ♀, laterally compressed; rhachilla disarticulating below each floret, reduced to a rounded callus below the ♂ florets, the uppermost internode ± 1 mm. long and bearing a fleshy outgrowth embracing the base of the ♀ floret; glumes 2, persistent, several-nerved; lemmas exceeding the glumes, 9–11-nerved, rounded on the back, the ♂ herbaceous to firmly coriaceous and usually glabrous, the ♀ softly leathery, pallid and pubescent; lodicules 3; anthers 6, filaments united; stigmas 3, borne upon a single style.
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