Plants usually perennial; sometimes rhizomatous. Culms 40-150 cm, erect, simple or branching. Leaves not aromatic; ligules membranous; blades lanceolate to broadly linear, sometimes pseudopetiolate. Inflorescences terminal, open or contracted panicles, with evident rachises with numerous subverticellate branches that terminate in 1-3 short rames; rames with slender internodes and 2-5 sessile-pedicellate homogamous spikelet pairs; disarticulation in the rames, below the sessile spikelets. Spikelets usually lanceolate. Glumes equal, chartaceous, often pilose, scarcely keeled, with several raised veins, acute; calluses glabrous or densely hairy; lower florets usually staminate, unawned; upper florets bisexual; upper lemmas bilobed, with a geniculate awn; anthers 3. x = 10. Pedicels slender, not fused to the rames axes. Name from the Greek spodios, ash-colored or gray, and pogon, beard, a reference to the spikelet hairs.