Annual or perennial, slender. Leaf blades linear or broadly linear, flat. Inflorescence an open panicle; pedicels filiform. Spikelets ovate to rotund, laterally compressed or globose, florets several to many, glumes and florets horizontally spreading, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes subequal, shorter than florets, narrowly ovate to orbicular, 3–5-veined, margins broad, scarious, apex hooded; lemmas tightly overlapping, orbicular to oblate, deeply concave, papery to leathery, 5–11-veined, back gibbous, usually slightly keeled, margins broad, membranous, appressed to floret above, base cordate, apex obtuse, cuspidate or 2-lobed; palea slightly or much shorter than lemma, lanceolate to orbicular, keels narrowly winged. Stamens 1–3. Caryopsis plumply elliptic; hilum round to elliptic, or linear.

The delicate panicles of plump spikelets on fine trembling pedicels are very ornamental and are used in dried flower arrangements (Quaking Grass).

Twenty-one species:temperate Asia, Europe, and South America; three species (two introduced) in China.

(Authors: Lu Shenglian (卢生莲); Sylvia M. Phillips)