Annuals or perennials, usually stoloniferous; leaf-blades linear to lanceolate, flat; ligule membranous, lacerate or ciliate. Inflorescence either an open panicle or composed of several loose to dense racemes or spikes on a central axis. Spikelets several-flowered, broadly elliptic to ovate, subsessile or pedicelled, disarticulating between the florets; glumes 1-several-nerved, rounded or lightly keeled, subequal to unequal, shorter than the lemmas, persistent; lemmas 3-nerved, elliptic to ovate, rounded on the back, membranous, scarious or herbaceous, glabrous or appressed pilose on the back and glabrous or villous along the lower part of the margins, sometimes also villous along the midnerve, the tip obtuse, sometimes mucronate; palea glabrous or villous along the keels, sometimes pilose on the flaps. Grain broadly elliptic to subrotund, concave on the hilar side, rugose, enclosed within a free hyaline pericarp.