Slender annuals, rarely perennials. Leaf-blades linear, flat, convolute or involute. Inflorescence a ± secund contracted or spike-like panicle, or rarely a raceme. Spikelets 3-13-flowered, laterally compressed, borne upon short thickened pedicels; glumes often very unequal, narrow, the lower nerveless or 1-nerved, the upper 1-3-nerved, longer than the lower; lemmas subulate-lanceolate, rounded on the back with incurved margins, finely (3-)5-nerved, becoming rigid, narrowed into a fine straight awn; palea 2-keeled, narrow; stamens 1-3.