Description: Slender annuals or perennials, stoloniferous or decumbent, rarely erect; culms slender, smooth and branching.
Leaves with sheath smooth, striate, loose; ligule a ciliate, membranous rim; blade flat or folded, margins scabrous.
Inflorescence a digitate arrangement of 3–6 spikes with spikelets in 2 close rows on 1 side of the spike axis.
Spikelets laterally compressed, sessile, solitary, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes; 1 bisexual floret with the rachilla continued as a sterile bristle. Glumes subequal, membranous, 1-nerved, rough along the back of the nerve. Lemma keeled, shorter than the glumes, 3-nerved, densely ciliate on nerves, often bearded at the apex. Palea equal to lemma, 2-nerved with short, dense hairs on nerves, the keels continued into minute points.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 8–10 species, tropical Africa & Australasia. Australia: 5 species (native), all mainland States except Vic.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves loosely covered with fine hairs; upper glume rounded, not keeled and winged on the back, midnerve prominent | Brachyachne ciliaris |
| Leaves glabrous except at the base of the blade; upper glume laterally compressed with a winged keel | Brachyachne convergens |
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