Caespitose perennials or rarely annuals. Leaf-blades filiform to linear, flat, folded or rolled; ligule often elongated. Inflorescence a spreading (or rarely contracted) panicle, with small shining spikelets. Spikelets usually 2-flowered, the florets similar, bisexual; rhachilla disarticulating below each floret, pilose or rarely glabrous, produced as a fine bristle; glumes subequal or unequal, mostly acute, keeled, subscarious to membranous with thin shining margins, the lower 1-3 nerved, the upper 3 (rarely 1)-nerved; lemmas lanceolate to oblong, shorter than the glumes or the upper with the tip exserted, scarious-membranous to thinly membranous, obscurely 4-5-nerved, 2-lobed, 4-toothed or lacerate-truncate at the apex, with a straight or geniculate awn from the back; callus minute, obtuse, usually bearded; palea about as long as the lemma, 2-keeled; stamens 3; stigmas 2.