Erect annuals or perennials with flat leaf-blades and membranous ligules. Panicle open or rather dense; branches numerous, racemose with shortly pedicelled spikelets. Spikelets 3-flowered, strongly laterally compressed, falling entire from the pedicel; glumes absent or represented by obscure lips at the pedicel-tip; both lower florets represented only by narrow lemmas, these usually subulate or linear and much shorter than the spikelet. Upper floret fertile; lemma coriaceous, strongly keeled, prominently 5-nerved, with or without an awn; palea similar but narrower, keeled, 3-nerved; stamens 6; stigmas 2.