Brachychloa

Perennial or annual, tufted or decumbent, stoloniferous. Leaf blade linear to almost lanceolate, rigid; ligule a short, truncate, fringed membrane. Inflorescence of racemes on a central axis, these long and deciduous or short, persistent and crowded into a loose head or spreading; spikelets solitary, pedicelled. Spikelet laterally compressed, lanceolate-oblong to ovate-oblong, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes +/- equal, shorter than spikelet, lateral to rachis, lanceolate, keeled, glabrous to minutely scaberulous; lower glume subcoriaceous, acute, awnless, sometimes mucronate, 1-3-nerved; upper glume coriaceous with margins membranous, 3-7-nerved, acuminate to shortly mucronate from between lobes. Florets 3-7, bisexual or uppermost floret reduced and sterile; lemma similar in texture to glumes, chartaceous, subobtuse to obtuse, lightly keeled with a single median keel, glabrous or hairy on margins, 3-7-nerved, nerves faint in upper half, 2-lobed, shortly mucronate; callus 0; palea shorter than lemma, slightly gibbous at base, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 2-keeled. Lodicules 2, hyaline, minute. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose. Caryopsis ellipsoid or trigonous, with free pericarp.