Plants annual or perennial; cespitose or rhizomatous. Culms 5-160 cm, erect or geniculate at the base, glabrous; basal branching extravaginal. Sheaths closed almost to the top; ligules membranous; blades flat to folded, adaxial surfaces with prominent midribs. Inflorescences terminal, racemes, rarely panicles. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 5-20(30) florets, upper florets reduced; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the florets. Glumes unequal to subequal, shorter than the adjacent lemmas, membranous to subhyaline, margins scarious; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes 1-3-veined; rachilla internodes in some species swollen and glandular basally, the glandular portion turning whitish when dry; calluses rounded, glabrous; lemmas thick, herbaceous to membranous, 7(9)-veined, veins parallel, margins scarious, apices scarious, entire or emarginate, midvein sometimes extended into an awn, awns straight; paleas subequal to the lemmas, 2-veined, keeled over each vein, keels winged, with 1 or 2 awns or a flat triangular appendage; lodicules 2, completely fused; anthers 3, opening by pores; ovaries glabrous. x = 8, 9, 10. Name from the Greek, pleura, 'side', and pogon, 'beard', a reference to the awns on the sides of the palea in some species.