Annuals. Leaf-blades flat, coarse; ligule a very short ciliate membrane. Inflorescence a single raceme, these numerous and aggregated into a spatheate false panicle; raceme fragile, bearing paired spikelets, dorsally compressed; internodes flattened, oblong, cupuliform above, fused to the adjacent pedicel. Sessile spikelet 2-flowered, falling entire, globose; callus truncate, oblique, with a central boss; lower glume hemispherical, crustaceous, pitted and tuberculate, wingless; upper glume partly adherent to the enclosing internode; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper floret bisexual, the lemma entire and awnless; caryopsis oblate, slightly dorsally flattened. Pedicelled spikelet narrowly ovate, herbaceous, narrowly winged; pedicel broadly linear, scarcely distinguishable from the internode.