Mostly perennials with creeping rhizomes; culms slender, often geniculate and ascending, up to ± 60 cm high. Leaf-blades flat or convolute, often harshly scabrid on the margins; ligule membranous. Panicle spreading, ovate or oblong, the spikelets shortly pedicelled and imbricate. Spikelets 1-flowered, strongly laterally compressed, falling entire from the pedicel; glumes absent or represented by an obscure frill at the pedicel-tip; lemma chartaceous, boat-shaped, usually 5-nerved, typically spinulose scabrid, muticous, rarely subulate-caudate or awned; palea resembling the lemma, but narrower and usually 3 -nerved; stamens (1-3-)6; stigmas 2.