Small perennials with rhizomes. Culms becoming fibrous at the base. Leaf-blades flat or folded, blunt at the tip. Inflorescence a spiciform or spreading panicle. Spikelets 1-flowered, rarely the rhachilla prolonged and bearing a rudimentary second floret, slightly laterally compressed, awnless; glumes persistent, unequal or subequal, almost as long as the spikelet (always more than half as long), firmly membranous with hyaline margins and tip, lightly keeled near the base, rounded above, the nerves falling short of the obtuse or subacute tip; lemma elliptic-oblong, thinly membranous, 3-5-nerved (the intermediate nerves obscure), keeled below, hairy on the nerves and sometimes also between them, the nerves not reaching the obtuse, broadly scarious tip; callus glabrous or hairy; palea as long as the lemma; lodicules large, bilobed; the lobes irregularly toothed.

A genus of 4 species in the Caucasus mountains, southern USSR, Afghanistan and the Himalayas; 1 species occurs in Kashmir.

The genus is recognised mainly by a combination of rather minor characters. In particular, the spikelets are 1-flowered, a considerable deviation from the usual pattern in Poeae. Other associated characters of the genus are: rhizomatous habit; glumes almost as long as the spikelet; large lodicules; the margins of the sheaths of the cauline leaves united for a quarter to three-quarters of their length; caryopsis free from the palea and with a rostrate tip and oblong or linear hilum 0.25-0.5 times its length.

Lower Taxon

• Paracolpodium altaicum subsp. leucolepsis (Nevski) Tzvelev

Related Synonym(s):

• Colpodium leucolepis Nevski = Paracolpodium altaicum subsp. leucolepsis (Nevski) Tzvelev
• Colpodium villosum Bor = Paracolpodium altaicum subsp. leucolepsis (Nevski) Tzvelev
• Paracolpodium leucolepis (Nevski) Tzvelev = Paracolpodium altaicum subsp. leucolepsis (Nevski) Tzvelev