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Perennials, tufted, sometimes shortly rhizomatous. Leaf blades narrowly to broadly linear, usually flat; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a moderately lax to spikelike panicle, shining. Spikelets with 2 or 3 florets, disarticulating below each floret; rachilla shortly bearded, extended beyond uppermost floret, tipped by a reduced or vestigial floret; glumes lanceolate, unequal or subequal, shorter than spikelet, keeled, herbaceous or membranous, margins broad, hyaline, lower glume 1(–3)-veined, upper glume 3-veined, apex acute or acuminate; floret callus glabrous or shortly bearded; lemmas lanceolate, laterally compressed, membranous to thinly leathery, 5-veined, glabrous, awned from above middle of back, apex 2-toothed, teeth often aristulate; awn geniculate with twisted column or merely outwardly curved; palea hyaline, slightly to distinctly shorter than lemma, gaping free from lemma margins. Ovary glabrous or almost so. Caryopsis with punctiform hilum; endosperm sometimes liquid.
Spikelets 2(3–5)-fld, disarticulating above the glumes and between the lemmas; rachilla prolonged behind the second palea, often hairy; glumes thin or membranous, with broad hyaline margins, about as long as the spikelet, the first 1–3-veined, the second 3–5-veined; lemmas thin, elongate, rounded on the back or distally keeled, obscurely veined, short-bearded at base, entire and awnless, or with a straight or bent awn arising from above the middle of the back; seeds with minute embryo and liquid endosperm; ligules membranous, erose; tufted perennials (rarely annual) with spiciform or subcapitate to loose and elongate panicles. 50+, cosmopolitan.
Spikelets 2-to 3-flowered, the rachilla usually villous, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets (in our species), prolonged beyond the upper-most floret; glumes somewhat unequal, acute, the second usually longer than the first floret; lemmas usually short-bearded at the base, 2-toothed at the apex, bear ing from the back, below the cleft apex, a straight and included or usually geniculate and exserted awn (minutely lobed and awnless or nearly so in T. pringlei) .
