Plants annual. Culms 10-60 cm, herbaceous, not woody, often creeping. Leaves cauline; sheaths open, glabrous or pubescent; ligules membranous, with a ciliate fringe, fringe longer than the membranous base. Inflorescences terminal, secund panicles of 1-sided branches; branches erect to ascending, axes triquetrous, terminating in a well-developed spikelet; secondary branches, when present, shorter than the primary branches; disarticulation below the glumes and beneath the upper florets. Spikelets solitary, subsessile, dorsally compressed, unequally convex, in 2 rows, the lower glumes and lemmas appressed or adjacent to the branch axes, with 2 florets; lower florets sterile or staminate; upper florets stipitate, bisexual, usually glabrous, readily disarticulating, acuminate. Lower glumes to 0.5 mm, less than 1/2 as long as the spikelets, glabrous, adjacent to the branch axes, 0-1-veined; upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, villous, 3-5-veined; upper glumes subequal to or slightly exceeding the upper florets, not saccate; lower paleas present; anthers (if present) 3; upper lemmas equaling the second glume, glabrous, indurate, smooth, shiny to lustrous, 5- or 7-veined, margins involute, apices round to muticous; upper paleas similar to the upper lemmas; anthers 3. Caryopses ovoid, dorsally compressed. x = 9. Name from the Greek mooros, fool, and chloa, grass.