Vet. Acad. Handl. Stockh. 1853; 148 (1855); Gen. Gram.: 214 (1986).
Description:
* Tufted annuals or perennials. Leaves linear, ligule membranous.
* Inflorescence open or contracted; composed of stiff racemes along a central axis. Spikelets subsessile or shortly pedicelled, biseriate on one side of the axis, imbricate or distant.
* Spikelets wedge-shaped, 4-9 florets with the florets loosely imbricate. Glumes longer than adjacent lemmas, mucronate or awned. Lemma margins with long stiff cilia, the apex bilobed with a fine straight awn arising from the sinus. Caryopsis narrow, flattened.
Genus with one species; savannas of East Africa.