Caespitose perennials with narrowly linear, rolled, almost setaceous leaves. Inflorescence an ample or contracted panicle, rarely a raceme. Spikelets 2-5-flowered, the uppermost reduced, usually male; rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets, usually produced and bearing a rudimentary floret. Glumes equal or subequal, herbaceous and hyaline on the margins to somewhat firmly chartaceous, 3-9-nerved; lemmas rounded on the back, usually membranous, bibbed, hairy or almost glabrous, 7-9-nerved, awned from the sinus; lobes lanceolate or acuminate with a long or short bristle from the tip; awn flat, glabrous or shortly hairy, strongly twisted below the knee, slightly twisted above; palea 2-toothed, 2-keeled; anthers 3.