Low-growing annuals or perennials. Culms slender, ascending or decumbent. Leaf blades small, linear to lanceolate; ligule a line of hairs. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle. Spikelets 2-flowered, florets dissimilar, the lower bisexual, the upper female, separated by a slender rachilla internode; glumes persistent, subequal, shorter than the spikelet, 1–7-veined, broadly obtuse; lemmas both membranous, veinless or obscurely veined, glabrous or pubescent, obtuse, the upper a little shorter than the lower; palea similar to lemma. Stamens 2–3. Caryopsis ovate-elliptic.

Eleven species: tropics of the Old World, in marshy places and on streamsides; one species in China.