Annual or perennial. Leaf blades mostly rolled. Panicle open, contracted or spikelike with solitary, pedicellate spikelets. Glumes subequal, rounded on the back, 1/2 as long to much exceeding the florets, papery with hyaline or scarious margins; floret callus short, obtuse; lemmas pilose, grooved or smooth, usually awned but sometimes merely acute; paleas usually similar to lemmas in texture and indumentum, entire or bidentate, keels rounded, usually distant, sometimes excurrent into awns, margins hyaline and embracing the caryopsis. Stamens 3, rarely 2. Caryopsis ± ellipsoid, dorsally compressed.

About 40 species: Australia, a few species extending into SE Asia, India, and Sri Lanka; one species in China.