Annuals. Culms single or tufted. Leaf blades linear, thin, flat; ligule membranous with ciliate fringe. Inflorescence composed of racemes arranged digitately or in whorls along a central axis; racemes with imbricate, subsessile spikelets on a slender flattened rachis, terminal spikelet abortive. Spikelets laterally compressed, florets 6–20, lemmas falling at maturity from below upward leaving the paleas on the persistent rachilla, but often spikelet falling wholly or in part when only a few lemmas have been shed; glumes shorter than lemmas, 1-veined, keeled; lemmas firmly membranous, 3-veined, glabrous, strongly keeled, entire or bidentate, tipped with a stout awn-point. Grain ellipsoid, ornamented, deeply sulcate on hilar side, enclosed within a free hyaline pericarp which ruptures at maturity.

Three species: Old World tropics; one species in China.

(Authors: Chen Shouliang (陈守良); Sylvia M. Phillips)