Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades linear to lanceolate, flat or convolute; ligule a line of hairs, rarely membranous. Inflorescence a cylindrical to subglobose spike-like panicle terminal on culms and branches, rarely axillary and then often gathered into a leafy false panicle, each spikelet or cluster of spikelets subtended by a deciduous involucre of 1-many slender bristles free throughout; rhachis rounded or angular, with or without short peduncle stumps, occasionally the involucre shortly stipitate below the insertion of the bristles. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate to oblong, dorsally compressed, glabrous or almost so; lower glume up to two-thirds the length of the spikelet, sometimes suppressed; upper glume varying from very small to as long as the spikelet; lower floret male or barren, its lemma of variable length, membranous; upper lemma as long as the spikelet or a little shorter, membranous to coriaceous, its margin covering ± half the palea; anther tips smooth or sometimes with a minute tuft of hairs. Caryopsis oblong and dorsally compressed to subglobose.