Trans. Linn. Soc. 26: 126 (1868); FTEA: 11 (1970); FWTA: 360 (1972); Clayton & Renvoize: 56 (1986)
* Shrubs or small trees bamboo with wooden solid or thick-walled culms. Leaves finally disarticulating from the sheath.
* Inflorescence of dense globate spikelet-clusters at the tip of bare branches, each cluster arising in the axils of a short-bladed papery bract.
* Spikelet 1 – 4-flowered, the upper florets falling entire at maturity. Glumes having an increasing size, rounded on the back, papyraceous to coriaceous. Lemmas exceeding the glumes progressively, increasing in length upwards, the tip pungent. Stamens 6.
* Only one species also occurring in Ghana.