Slender annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades narrow; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a raceme, the spikelets pedicelled on opposite side of, and broadside onto, the axis. Spikelets all alike, cylindrical or slightly laterally compressed, several-to many-flowered, the florets all alike and fertile or the upper imperfect; rhachilla disarticulating below each floret; glumes persistent, unequal, shorter than the lowest floret; lemma 7-9-nerved, with a straight awn from the tip; lodicules 2; stamens 3; stigmas 2, the ovary with a hairy apical appendage. Grain with small embyro and linear hilum; starch grains simple, rounded. Chromosomes small, basic number 5,7 or 9.

A single genus in Europe and Asia generally, also in the African highlands and Central America.

A tribe obviously allied to Bromeae, but with several apparently important differences, such as the small chromosomes and laevulose endosperm sugar (it is saccharose in other pooid tribes including Bromeae and Triticeae).

Lower Taxon

• Brachypodium P. Beauv.

Related Synonym(s):

• Trachynia Link = Brachypodium P. Beauv.