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Plants annual. Culms usually erect, rarely decumbent at base. Leaf sheath split almost to base; ligule membranous; auricles lanceolate; leaf blade usually flat. Spike linear, oblong, or ovate, distichous; rachis disarticulating or not. Spikelets 1 per node, sessile, with (2 or)3–9(–11) florets; apical floret usually sterile; rachilla without joints. Glumes ovate, oblong, or elliptic, ± leathery, 3–11(–13)-veined with 1 or 2 veins raised as keels, glabrous or hairy, smooth or very scabrous along keels, apex obliquely truncate, 1-or 2-toothed, larger tooth sometimes extending into longish awn. Lemma 7–11(–15)-veined, ± keeled, apex awned or awnless; callus very short, obtuse. Palea usually slightly shorter than lemma. Lodicules ciliate at margin. Caryopsis ovate or oblong, ± plump, deeply furrowed, apex ± hairy. x = 7.
Infl a thick, bilateral spike with sessile, solitary spikelets borne flatwise to the rachis; spikelets 2–5-fld, turgid but laterally somewhat flattened, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets; glumes thick and firm, 3–several-veined, excentrically keeled, mucronate or awned from the bidentate summit; lemmas broad, excentrically keeled, firm, acute to awned, with 5–7 nonconvergent veins; caryopsis deeply furrowed in back; annual or winter-annual grasses. 20, Eurasia.
