Annuals. Leaf-blades flat or rolled, shortly auricled at the base. Inflorescence a dense spike, breaking up at maturity. Spikelets in pairs at the nodes, 2-flowered, the lower floret bisexual, the upper rudimentary and sterile; glumes connate at the base, narrowly subulate, rigid, scabrid; lemma lanceolate, 5-nerved, attenuate at the tip into a long flexuous scabrid awn flattened at the base; palea 2-keeled.