Annuals or perennials; culms weak, trailing or scrambling, often with aerial roots from the nodes, the internodes mostly with a decurrent villous line adaxial to the subtending leaf. Leaf-blades broadly linear to ovate, often minutely cross-veined. Inflorescence composed of racemes borne along a central axis; rhachis narrow, bearing paired spikelets, their lower glume abaxial. Spikelets lanceolate to oblong; glumes subequal, half to three-quarters as long as the spikelet, both or at least the lower awned; lower floret barren (rarely male), usually without a palea; upper lemma subcoriaceous, its margins broadly clasping the sides of the palea. Caryopsis oblong.