Annual or perennial. Culms decumbent, rooting at the nodes, much branched and leafy. Leaf blades linear-lanceolate to narrowly ovate; ligule membranous. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle. Spikelets asymmetrical, obovate, laterally compressed, florets 2, lower floret sterile, upper floret bisexual; glumes both shorter than spikelet, unequal, membranous to herbaceous, 3–5-veined; lower glume smaller, ovate, clasping, subacute; upper glume boat-shaped, obtuse; lower lemma usually equal to spikelet, 5-veined, nearly straight on the back, its palea small or absent; upper lemma laterally compressed, gibbously semiorbicular, subcoriaceous to crustaceous, smooth or minutely pitted, a little greenish crest near the apex which swells at maturity, upper palea dorsally slightly convex. x = 9.

This genus is a segregate from Panicum distinguished by its laterally compressed, gibbous spikelets with short glumes and a crested upper lemma.

Eleven species: Old World tropics, in shady places; two species in China.

(Authors: Chen Shouliang (陈守良); Sylvia M. Phillips)