Annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades narrow, flat or convolute; ligule membranous. Inflorescence an open panicle. Spikelets all alike, 1-flowered; rha-china disarticulating above the glumes, shortly produced; glumes persistent, longer than the lemma or as long as it; lemma chartaceous or hyaline, becoming strongly indurated in fruit, 5-nerved, awnless; palea similar in texture to the lemma, becoming chartaceous, 2-nerved; lodicules 2, acute; stamens 3; stigmas 2. Grain with small embryo and linear hilum; starch grains compound. Chromosomes large, basic number 2, 7 or 9.

Genera 2; temperate regions of the northern hemisphere; a single species in Pakistan.

Scarcely different from Aveneae and perhaps would be better included in that tribe; distinguished by its hardened mature lemma. Zingeria P. Smirn. is remarkable for its chromosome number where x=2.

Lower Taxon

• Milium Linn.