Plants annual or perennial; tufted or cespitose. Culms 15-50 cm, not woody. Sheaths open; ligules membranous. Inflorescences terminal, spikelike panicles, each node supporting a highly reduced branch or fascicle of spikelets; fascicles imbricate, with a short, thick, basal stipe subtending 4 thick, rigid, coriaceous, many-veined, flat, narrowly elliptic to ovate bracts; bracts fused at the base, enclosing 2-11 spikelets, 1-2 of the spikelets sterile or reduced; disarticulation beneath the fascicles. Spikelets with 2 florets. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes acicular, 1-veined, awned; lower florets sterile, sometimes reduced; lower lemmas 7-veined; lower paleas subequal to the lower lemmas; upper florets bisexual, sterile, or reduced; upper lemmas faintly 3-veined. Caryopses ellipsoidal. x = 9. Name from the Greek anthe, blossom, and pherin, to bear, alluding to the superficial resemblance of the inflorescence to a normal flower.