Caespitose perennials. Leaf blades linear, flat or more usually convolute. Inflorescence a compact raceme. Spikelets 3.6-flowered, the florets similar, bisexual, or the uppermost ± reduced; rhachilla disarticulating below each floret, slender, hairy or glabrous, produced as a short bristle or ending with a rudimentary floret; glumes subequal, rounded on the back, herbaceous with hyaline margins and tip, 5-13-nerved, acute, acuminate or shortly awned; lemmas ovate, ± enclosed by the glumes, herbaceous with hyaline margins and tip, 7-13-nerved, bifid, geniculately awned from between the teeth; palea as long as the lemma, 2-keeled, the keels mucronate or shortly awned at the tip; stamens 3; stigmas 2.