Description: Loosely tufted perennials; culms erect or slightly spreading; basal internodes often swollen.
Leaves with ligule membranous; blade rolled in bud.
Inflorescence a narrow, loose to rather dense, panicle, branches often spreading.
Spikelets pedicellate, solitary, slightly compressed laterally; rachilla disarticulating above the glumes but not between the lemmas, produced beyond the florets, occasionally with a reduced floret; florets 2, the lower male, the upper bisexual. Glumes broad, papery, acute, rounded on the back. Lemmas slightly longer than the glumes, the lower lemma with a twisted, geniculate awn arising near the base, the upper awnless or with a short bristle near the apex. Palea narrow and shorter than the lemma.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 6 species, Europe & Mediterranean region. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
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