Plants annual; tufted. Culms to 60 cm, often prostrate and branching at the base, glabrous; internodes solid. Sheaths open or closed, rounded on the back, frequently hispid; auricles absent; ligules membranous, usually lacerate and minutely ciliate; blades flat, mostly ascending, glabrous or hispid abaxially and/or adaxially. Inflorescences panicles, loosely contracted; branches spikelet-bearing to the base or nearly so. Spikelets pedicellate, subterete, with 1 floret; rachillas prolonged as a slender bristle, glabrous; disarticulation below the glumes. Glumes equal, rigid, chartaceous, hispid or scabrous, veinless or obscurely 3-5-veined, acute, unawned; calluses blunt, glabrous; lemmas equaling the glumes, chartaceous, smooth, veinless or inconspicuously 3-veined, minutely bifid or acute, awned near the apices, awns exceeding the florets, geniculate near midlength, basal segment twisted; paleas shorter than the lemmas, veinless or the base 2-veined, hyaline; lodicules 2, glabrous, toothed or not toothed; anthers 3; ovaries glabrous. Caryopses about 2.5 mm, linear. x = 7. Name from Limnas, a similar Eurasian genus, and the Greek odes, like.