Plants annual or perennial; sometimes rhizomatous or stoloniferous. Culms 10-60 cm, usually compressed; internodes solid. Leaves cauline; sheaths shorter than the internodes, compressed; ligules membranous and ciliate or of hairs; blades flat or folded. Inflorescences spikelike panicles; branches very short, with fewer than 10 spikelets, appressed to and partially embedded in the flattened, corky rachises; disarticulation below the glumes, often with a segment of the branch. Spikelets lanceolate to ovate, unawned, lower glumes oriented away from the branch axes. Glumes membranous; lower glumes scalelike, usually without veins; upper glumes 5-7-veined; lower florets staminate or sterile, lemmas 3-9-veined; upper florets bisexual; upper lemmas longer than the glumes, papery to subcoriaceous, 3-5-veined; upper paleas generally indurate, 2-veined; anthers 3. Caryopses lanceolate to ovate, often failing to develop. x = 9. Name from the Greek stenos, narrow, and taphros, trench, referring to the cavities in the rachis.