Annuals or (in ours) perennials. Inflorescence consisting of paired racemes subtended by spatheoles and crowded in a large leafy false panicle. Racemes borne on a stalk (raceme-base) which may be deflexed at maturity; each raceme short, with usually 2 sessile spikelets per pair and with a single homogamous pair at the base of the lower raceme. Raceme-bases unequal, terete, the apex oblique and produced into a scarious appendage. Rhachis internodes and pedicels linear. Sessile spikelet: callus pungent, applied obliquely to the apex of the internode; lower glume with a median groove; upper glume with or without an awn; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper lemma hyaline, 2-dentate bearing a stout awn at the apex with a hirsute column. Pedicellate spikelet male, narrowed to an indistinct basal callus.