Perennials; culms robust. Leaves expanded. Inflorescence an open panicle, branched on all sides, usually repeatedly branched, with a continuous axis. Spikelets awned, with a bundle of long white or colored hairs at base, lanceolate; glume thin, 1-5-nerved; lemmas smaller; lower lemma very thin, hyaline; lower palea absent; upper lemma hyaline, entire or with shortly 2-toothed apex, l-nerved, the nerve excurrent into long or short awn; upper palea shorter, narrow, nerveless; lodicules 2, cuneate; stamens 2-3; styles 2, free, the stigmas plumose. Caryopsis oblong.
About 20 species distributed in the Pacific Islands, the Philippines, China and Japan.
Two species and two varieties are found in the exposed place throughout the Island.
