Annuals. Leaf-blades linear, flat; ligule membranous, truncate, lacerate or ciliate. Inflorescence composed of several-many secund spikes irregularly arranged along a central axis; spikes varying from short,.-broad and crowded to linear and distant, deciduous from the main rhachis at maturity or persistent but with the lower spikelets on each side often replaced by small deciduous branchlets. Spikelets 1-several-flowered, wedge-shaped, laterally compressed, sessile, biseriate, closely overlapping, disarticulating between the florets; glumes subequal, acuminate-aristate, much longer than the florets, strongly keeled, coriaceous or membranous; lemmas 3-nerved, lightly keeled, thinly membranous, pilose on the nerves, the tip acute to 2-lobed. Caryopsis elliptic-oblong, shallowly concave on the hilar side, trigonous in cross-section.