Plants annual; viscid, aromatic. Culms with solid, pithy interiors, often with 5 or more nodes. Leaves with little or no distinction between sheath and blade; ligules absent; blades of upper cauline leaves similar in length to those below; siliceous cells of the leaf epidermis absent or irregular to dumbbell-shaped; microhairs of the blades bicellular, small, sunken, "mushroom-button" shaped. Inflorescences terminal, narrow, cylindrical to clavate or capitate, usually dense panicles or spikes, spikelets sessile or shortly pedicellate; rachillas tardily disarticulating between the florets. Spikelets with 4-25(40) florets. Glumes entire, denticulate, toothed, or absent; lemmas with 5-17 conspicuous veins; paleas subequal to or slightly shorter than the lemmas, well-developed, keels glabrous; lodicules absent or 2, obscure, rounded, truncate to slightly emarginate; anthers 3. Caryopses laterally compressed; hila large, punctate, basal; embryos 3/4 or more as long as the caryopses. x = 10.

The tribe Orcuttieae includes only three genera and nine species, all of which are endemic to vernal pools and similar habitats in California and Baja California, Mexico. Its member employ C4 photosynthesis in al their leaves, judging by the carbon isotype ratios, but the aquatic leaves of most species of Orcuttia do not exhibit Kranz leaf anatomy whereas those of Tuctoria and Neostapfia do, as do the floating and aerial leaves (Boykin et al. 2008).