Pogonatherum P. Beauv., Ess. Agrost. 56, 176, t. 11/7. 1812. Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 7:141. 1896; Blatter & McCann, Bombay Grasses 24. 1935; Bor, Fl. Assam 5:345. 1940; Sultan & Stewart, Grasses W. Pak. 1:71. 1958; Bor, Grasses Burma Ceyl. Ind. Pak. 200. 1960; Bor in Rech. f., Fl. Iran. 70:521. 1970.
Slender perennials. Leaf-blades linear; ligule represented by a line of long hairs, these accrescent towards the base. Inflorescence a solitary raceme, long exserted on a slender peduncle, these arising terminally and in the axils; racemes fragile, bearing paired spikelets, those of a pair alike (or the pedicelled slightly smaller than the sessile); internodes and pedicels short, columnar. Spikelets 2-flowered, falling entire, laterally compressed; callus obtuse, long bearded; lower glume cartilaginous, rounded on the back, obtuse; upper glume boat-shaped, emarginate, with a long slender awn from the sinus; lower floret male, or reduced to a hyaline lemma, or wanting; upper floret bisexual, the lemma hyaline, shortly bifid, with a slender glabrous awn from the sinus; palea small; stamens 1 or 2; caryopsis ellipsoid.
A genus of 3 species in southern Asia and Australia; 2 species occur in Pakistan.
