Navicularia Raddi (1823), not Heister ex Fabricius (1759).

Perennial or rarely annual. Culms varying from tall and canelike to rambling and decumbent. Leaf blades linear to ovate but usually lanceolate and asymmetrically narrowed at the base. Inflorescence a panicle or the primary branches simple and racemelike. Spikelets lanceolate, laterally compressed, florets 2; glumes prominently keeled, 3–7-veined, acuminate; lower glume usually more than half spikelet length; upper glume equaling or longer than lower glume; upper floret with a semicircular to oblong callus, this laterally expanded into 2 membranous wings adnate to the lemma base, these often represented in dried material by scars, upper lemma dorsally compressed, smooth and shiny, the margins flat or inrolled.

About 30 species: New World tropics and subtropics, one species pantropical including China.

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