Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades sometimes auriculate; sheaths usually hairy. Panicle usually fairly large and open, sometimes dense and contracted. Spikelets usually large, the lemmas well exserted from the glumes and awned from the sinus of the 2-toothed tip or from just below it, rarely with just an awn-point or mucro. Styles arising laterally from just below the hairy apex of the ovary.