Annual or perennial herbs. Leaf-blades narrow, usually flat; ligule a fringe of hairs or membranous. Inflorescence of 1-sided spikes, these usually solitary, digitate or scattered along an axis, very rarely a dense spike-like panicle; rhachis of the spike tough, rarely fragile or deciduous as a whole. Spikelets usually bisexual and all alike, 1-several-flowered but only 1 of the florets bisexual (except Tetrapogon and Neostapfiella), sometimes monoecious or dioecious and heteromorphous, usually disarticulating above the glumes at maturity, mostly laterally compressed; bisexual floret solitary, or with 1 or more male or barren florets above it, sometimes also with barren florets below; glumes herbaceous to hyaline, laterally compressed and often keeled, 1-3-nerved, sometimes awned, unequal or subequal, shorter than the floret or enclosing it, the lower glume adaxial; lemma membranous to chartaceous, 3-nerved (with few exceptions), the lateral nerves near the margin and often ciliate, entire, emarginate or 2-lobed, awned or awnless; palea hyaline, mostly shorter than the lemma; lodicules 2, rarely absent; stamens 3; stigmas 2. Grain with large embryo and small round hilum; starch grains compound. Chromosomes small, basic number 9 or 10.

Genera ± 45; throughout the tropics; 7 genera and 14 species in Pakistan.

A tribe closely approaching Eragrostideae, being distinguished by the single fertile floret per spikelet. The few exceptions to this rule, although trouble-some in artificial keys, are seldom difficult to place for the tribes also differ markedly in the general facies of their inflorescence.

Lower Taxa

• Chloris Sw.
• Cynodon Rich.
• Fingerhuthia Nees
• Melanocenchris Nees
• Oropetium Trin.
• Schoenefeldia Kunth
• Tetrapogon Desf.