Hist. Stirp. Helv. 2: 244 (1768), nom. conserv.; Gen. Gram.: 298 (1986).- Type-species: Digitaria sanguinalis (Linn.) Scop.
Description:
* Annuals or tussocky to rhizomatous perennials. Culms variable, erect to stoloniferous. Leaves usually flat and linear, sometimes setaceous or lanceolate; ligule membranous.
* Inflorescence composed of slender racemes, usually digitate or along a central axis, occasionally the axis elongate, sometimes with secondary branchlets; rhachis flat or triquetrous, bearing spikelets in appressed groups of 1-5.
* Spikelets lanceolate to elliptic, flattened on the front and convex on the back, glabrous or appressed hairy to copiously villous, typically in stripes between the nerves. Lower glume abaxial, reduced or absent; the upper as long as spikelet or much shorter and exposing the upper lemma. Lower floret barren, represented by a single lemma, 5-9-nerved, but occasionally reduced, typically with the hairs appressed between the 1rst and 2nd lateral nerves; upper lemma chartaceous to coriaceous, with broad, flat, fine, hyaline margins enfolding the pale, longitudinally striate to dark brown.
Important genus of the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions.