Tufted perennials without rhizomes. Culms often bulbous due to the accumulation of persistent basal sheaths, these often becoming fibrous or reticulate. Leaf-blades flat or folded, blunt at the tip. Inflorescence a spreading or rarely contracted panicle. Spikelets (1-)2-4-flowered, slightly laterally compressed, awnless; glumes persistent, subequal or unequal, much shorter than the lemmas, the lower scarcely half as long as the lowest lemma, firmly membranous with hyaline margins and tip, lightly keeled near the base, rounded above, the nerves falling short of the obtuse or subacute tip; lemmas ovate or oblong, thinly membranous, 3-5-nerved (the intermediate nerves obscure), slightly keeled below, glabrous or pubescent on the nerves and sometimes also between them, the nerves not reaching the obtuse tip; callus glabrous or slightly hairy; palea as long as the lemma; lodicules small, ± bilobed.

A genus of 7 species in Europe and Turkey eastwards through much of the USSR to the Himalayas; 1 species occurs in Kashmir.

The genus differs from Paracolpodium and Hyalopoa in a number of minor, but cumulatively quite significant ways. The plants lack rhizomes and are often slightly bulbous at the base; the glumes are shorter in relation to the length of the spikelet and the lodicules are smaller; the margins of the sheaths of the cauline leaves are united only in the lowest sixth to a quarter: the caryopsis is ± adherent to the palea and has a short oval or oblong hilum 0.2-0.25 times its length.

Lower Taxon

• Catabrosella himalaica (Hook.f.) Tzvelev

Related Synonym(s):

• Catabrosa himalaica (Hook.f.) Stapf = Catabrosella himalaica (Hook.f.) Tzvelev
• Colpodium himalaicum (Hook.f.) Bor = Catabrosella himalaica (Hook.f.) Tzvelev
• Phippsia himalaica Hook.f. = Catabrosella himalaica (Hook.f.) Tzvelev