Neyraudia Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 7:305. 1896. Sultan & Stewart, Grasses W. Pak. 2: 255. 1959; Bor, Grasses Burma Ceyl. Ind. Pak. 518. 1960.
Tall reed-like perennials. Leaf-blades broad and flat or rolled, firm, at length deciduous from the sheath. Inflorescence a large plumose panicle. Spikelets 2-7-flowered, the florets well exserted from the glumes; florets all bisexual with the upper reduced, or sometimes the lowermost sterile and lacking a palea. Glumes lanceolate, unequal, 1-3-nerved, acuminate or drawn out into a short awn-point; lemmas longer than the glumes, rounded on the back, scarious-membranous, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves long-ciliate with spreading hairs as long as the lemma, usually shortly bilobed and awned from between ,the lobes; awn often recurved, not twisted; palea almost as long as the lemma; callus obtuse.
A genus of 2 species in the Old World tropics; 1 species occurs in Pakistan.
Neyraudia is frequently confused with Phragmites, a genus of similar habit, but with the hairs enveloping the spikelet arising from the rhachilla instead of the lateral nerves of the lemma.