Annuals or perennials, culm creeping, rooting at base, erect above. Leaf blade flat, usually spreading
horizontally; ligule a ciliate rim; sheaths often long-hairy and viscid. Inflorescence a repeatedly
branched panicle, branches arranged on all sides of central axis, ultimate branchlets slender. Spikelets
articulate with pedicel, small, slightly compressed laterally, lower glume minute; upper glume subequal
to lower lemma, both thinly membranaceous; upper glume 2-lobed, muticous or with minute awn; lower
lemma narrower, with 2 narrow lobes, usually with a slender awn from sinus, 7-veined; lower palea
absent; upper lemma shorter, membranaceous, obscurely veined, unawned; upper palea equally long,
faintly veined; stamens 3, anthers rather large; styles 2, free, short, stigma plumose, exserted laterally.
Caryopsis enclosed between not or scarcely indurate upper palea and lemma, oblong, greenish yellow,
faintly variegated with purple or brown; hilum small, basal; embryo nearly 1/2 as long as caryopsis.
Eleven species in tropical and South Africa. One naturalized pasture grass in Taiwan.
