Annuals. Leaf-blades flat or folded. Inflorescence a raceme or with few, usually simple, racemose branches near the middle. Spikelets 3-8-flowered, the lower 2-3 florets fertile, the upper male or sterile, disarticulating tardily below each floret or pedicel; glumes strongly keeled; lemma with 5-7 prominent, thick nerves, strongly keeled, rounded to emarginate at the tip, chartaceous, with broad hyaline margins; palea almost as long as the lemma.