Robust annuals or perennials. Leaves:
lamina linear. Inflorescence a large terminal panicle, the branches
bearing short racemes; internodes and pedicels filiform;
spikelets of each pair different. Sessile spikelet
dorsally flattened; lower glume ± coriaceous, broadly
convex across the back, becoming 2-keeled and narrowly winged
near the tip; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper
lemma hyaline, 2-dentate with a glabrous awn from the sinus.
Pedicellate spikelet male or barren, narrower than the
sessile and awnless. Worldwide: 24 species in warm parts of the Old World including 1 species in Mexico Zimbabwe: 2 cultivated taxa. |