Annuals or perennials; culms hollow. Leaf sheath often articulate; blades wide, sometimes broad at
base, sometimes pseudo-petiolate, sometimes with distinct transverse veins, sometimes slightly falcate.
Mostly from shady habitats, often producing long, very slender aerial roots. Spikelets borne on all-sidesof branched panicles, tardily deciduous as a whole, oblong and acute before anthesis, afterwards gaping,
2-flowered; rahilla between lower lemma and upper lemma elongated and with a membranaceous
appendage on either side, which is free above and adnate to lower lemma below; glumes distinctly
spaced, thinly membranaceous, acute, prominently veined; lower glume much shorter than upper
glume, embracing base of latter, 3(-5)-veined; upper glume as long as spikelets, thinly membranaceous,
with well-developed lower palea, upper lemma smaller, totally chartaceous, smooth and glossy, faintly
veined, margins narrowly inrolled, embracing upper palea all around, mostly with shortly stipitate
bases; upper palea chartaceous; lodicules 2, small; stamens 3, anthers linear; stytes 2, free, stigmas laterally
exserted. Caryopsis free between upper palea and lemma.
Thirty-three species, mainly New World tropics. One species pantropical. One species in Taiwan.
