Kew Bull. 20: 438 (1966); Gen. Gram.: 356 (1986).
Description: Tall annual and perennial.- Type-species: Hyperthelia dissoluta (Steud.) W.D. Clayton.
* Inflorescence a pair of racemes embraced or subtended by a linear to lanceolate spatheole. Pairs crowded into a large compound panicle. Racemes short, containing 2 (1-10) sessile spikelets per pair, with one pair of homogamous spikelets at the base of the lower raceme; bases terete, sometimes deflexed, the tip produced into a scarious appendage of 3-20 mm long.
* Sessile spikelet terete, the callus pungent. Lower glume with a median groove and a herbaceous or membranous tip; upper glume with or without an awn. Upper lemma bi-dentate, bearing a stout hairy awn. Pedicelled spikelets long as sessile with a conical callus.
Genus with 6 species.