Leptocarydion

Annual, tufted. Leaf blade lanceolate to ovate, broad, rounded or abruptly constricted at base, expanded or rolled; ligule a fringed membrane. Inflorescence +/- oblong, dense, silky, spike-like, composed of many, crowded, slender, 1-sided racemes appressed to axis; spikelets solitary, sessile or subsessile. Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes very unequal, shorter than spikelet, linear, keeled, 1-nerved, acuminate to acute, sometimes mucronate. Florets 5-14; lower florets bisexual; upper floret reduced and sterile; lemmas similar, elliptic-lanceolate, keeled, 3-nerved, nerves conspicuously hairy, truncate or minutely 2-4-lobed, midnerve excurrent into a long slender, straight, scabrid awn; callus hairy; palea linear-lanceolate, shorter than lemma, 2-keeled, hyaline. Lodicules 2, cuneate, glabrous. Stamens 3; anthers minute. Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, slender, plumose. Caryopsis linear.