Annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades usually narrow, often convolute; ligule a fringe of hairs. Inflorescence a dense, often narrow panicle. Spikelets all alike, 2-or more flowered, the lower florets bisexual, the upper ± reduced often to a bundle of awns, the rhachilla disarticulating above the glumes and continuous between the florets; glumes membranous, distinctly 3- or more nerved, usually as long as the florets; lemma broad, rounded on the back, 9-many-nerved, the nerves produced into (2)9 or more awns or hyaline lobes; palea broad, obtuse; lodicules 2, cuneate; stamens 3; stigmas 2. Grain with large embryo and punctiform hilum; starch grains compound. Chromosomes small, basic number 10.

Genera 5; tropics and subtropics, usually in dry places; 1 genus and 4 species in Pakistan.

The tribe is clearly related to Eragrostideae. It is distinguished by the many-nerved, multi-awned lemmas and by the unique stalked glandular macro-hairs (absent in Pappophorum Schreb.).

Lower Taxon

• Enneapogon Desv. ex P. Beauv.