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Spikelets in pairs, one perfect, sessile, and subterete, the other represented only by its pedicel (2 such pedicels flanking the terminal spikelet of a raceme); glumes coriaceous, the first one hirsute, clasping or enclosing the glabrous or ciliate second one; lemmas 2, small, thin and hyaline, the lower one empty (sometimes nearly obsolete), the upper fertile and ending in a bent, twisted awn; erect perennials with elongate blades tapering to the base, the sheaths auricled at the summit; panicle slender, its ultimate branches bearing short, disarticulating racemes of 1–5 pairs of spikelets. 12, warm Amer. and Afr.
Sessile spikelet callus obtuse or pungent (with involucral hairs in S. pogonostachyum); inferior glume coriaceous, convex, keeled at the apex; superior glume broadly convex; superior lemma mostly entire, sometimes bilobed, awned.
Pedicelled spikelets usually reduced to a barren pedicel, but present and bisexual in S. pogonostachyum and S. fuscescens.
Inflorescence a panicle, the subdivided primary branches bearing short racemes, these sometimes reduced to triads.
Annuals or perennials.
