Plants perennial; rhizomatous, sometimes cespitose; monoecious. Culms annual, 10-300 cm, erect to decumbent; internodes usually solid. Ligules scarious, sometimes ciliolate; pseudopetioles present, twisted, placing the abaxial surface of the blades uppermost; blades linear to oblong, not folding or drooping at night, lateral veins diverging obliquely from the midveins, cross venation evident. Inflorescences panicles, usually espatheate; ultimate branches with 1-2 pistillate spikelets and 1 terminal, staminate spikelet; disarticulation beneath the pistillate florets and in the panicle branches. Spikelets unisexual, heteromorphic, usually in staminate-pistillate pairs on branchlets, with 1 floret; rachillas not prolonged beyond the florets. Staminate spikelets pedicellate, smaller than the pistillate spikelets, lanceolate to ovate, caducous; glumes unequal; lower glumes absent or much shorter than the upper glumes; upper glumes somewhat shorter than the floret; lodicules minute or absent; anthers 6. Pistillate spikelets sessile or shortly pedicellate, terete, sometimes inflated; glumes unequal to subequal, shorter than the florets, scarious, entire, sometimes persistent; lemmas chartaceous, becoming coriaceous, veins 5 or more, margins involute or utriculate, partly or wholly covered with uncinate hairs, not terminating in a branched awn; paleas 2-veined; lodicules absent; styles 1, 3-branched. Caryopses oblong to linear; hila as long as the caryopses. x = 12.
Discussion
The Phareae include three genera, all of which grow in tropical and subtropical forests. The tribe is represented by one genus in the Western Hemisphere, Pharus.