Trichopteryx Nees

Annuals or perennials, erect or trailing, the culms often wiry. Leaf-blades linear-lanceolate, flat, crinkled on one margin; ligule a ciliate fringe. Inflorescence a panicle, usually fairly dense, the pedicels commonly setose. Spikelets solitary or in pairs, brown, disarticulating beneath each floret, the lower floret ♂ (perennials) or barren (annuals); glumes narrowly ovate, membranous to thinly chartaceous, ± persistent, 3-nerved, the upper as long as the spikelet, the lower half as long; lower lemma lanceolate to narrowly ovate, as long as the spikelet, 3-nerved; upper lemma oblong-elliptic, membranous to thinly coriaceous, 5–7-nerved, 2-lobed, the lobes finely awned, with a tuft of hair below each lobe and a persistent awn from the sinus; callus semicircular (except T. stolziana), ± 0.1 mm. long; palea with the keels finely nerved, not winged, glabrous or with a few hairs between the keels; stamens 2. Caryopsis lanceolate, glabrous, the hilum linear.