Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades flat. Panicle spike-like, ovoid or cylindrical, the branches sometimes adnate to the axis. Spikelets firmly laterally compressed, breaking up above the persistent glumes; rhachilla produced or not. Glumes subequal, the margins overlapping but not connate, 3-nerved, shortly awned; lemma membranous, truncate or obtuse, 1-7-nerved, awnless, the margins not connate; palea as long as the lemma or almost so.