Plants annual or perennial; leaves linear to lanceolate. Inflorescences of spikelike branches attached along a more or less elongate central axis, rarely with secondary branches; branch axes filiform to more or less flat, the spikelets single or paired, rately in clusters, with their lower glumes appressed to the branched axes ("spikelets adaxial"). Spikelets sessile or pedicellate, plump; lower glumes exceeded by the florets, sometimes sheathing and adnate to the lowest rachilla segment; lower florets male or sterile; upper lemmas coriaceous to crustaceous, obtause to acute, occasionally mucronate, its margins inrolled and covering only the edges of the paleas; upper paleas obtuse to subacute, their tips hidden by the inrolled margins of the upper lemmas. Caryopses elliptic, dorsally compressed.
Brachiaria is described above in its traditional sense. The genus has been split into several different genera.