Annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades flat, linear. Panicle spike-like, ovoid, oblong or cylindrical. Spikelets firmly laterally compressed, falling entire from the cupuliform tips of the short pedicels; rhachilla not prolonged. Glumes subequal, often connate below the middle, 3-nerved, usually ciliate on the keels; lemma hyaline, truncate or ± acute, 3-nerved, awned from the back or rarely awnless, the margins often connate below; palea usually absent.