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Herbs, perennial or annual. Roots thin or tuberous. Leaves 2-ranked or spirally arranged, not glaucous; blade sessile or petiolate. Inflorescences terminal, leaf-opposed; cymes 1--2, enclosed in spathes, proximal cyme several-flowered, distal cyme vestigial or with 1--several staminate flowers; spathes often filled with mucilaginous liquid, margins distinct or basally connate; bracteoles usually absent. Flowers bisexual and staminate, bilaterally symmetric; pedicels well developed; sepals distinct or proximal 2 connate, unequal; petals distinct, proximal petal often different color than distal 2, smaller or subequal, distal 2 blue (occasionally lilac, lavender, yellow, peach, apricot, or white), clawed; stamens (5--)6, proximal 3 fertile, medial different in form, size from others, distal (2--)3 staminodial; filaments glabrous; antherodes commonly 4--6-lobed; ovary 2--3-locular, ovules 1--2 per locule, 1-seriate. Capsules 2--3-valved, 2--3-locular. Seeds 1--2 per locule; hilum linear; embryotega lateral. x = 11--15.
Sep 3, herbaceous, somewhat unequal, 2 sometimes connate at base; pet 3, the upper 2 usually blue, ovate to reniform, clawed at base, the lower one smaller, in most spp. white; fertile stamens 3, 2 with oblong anthers, one incurved with a longer anther; sterile stamens (2)3, smaller, with imperfect, cruciform anthers; filaments not hairy; ovary sessile, 3-locular, the lower 2 locules fertile, with 1 or 2 ovules, the upper median locule smaller, 1-ovuled or empty, or abortive; fr a loculicidal, 2–3-valved capsule; herbs with succulent stem and linear to lance-ovate lvs; infl of small cymes, each closely subtended by a folded cordate spathe from which the pedicels protrude (or sometimes 2 cymes to a spathe); usually self-pollinated. 200+, cosmop., mostly warm reg.
Small or mediocre, caulescent, subsucculent annuals. Leaves alternate, sheath-ing at the base. Inflorescences chiefly terminal, simply scorpioid, few-flowered, more or less enclosed by a conduplicate spathaceous bract. Sepals 3, subequal. Petals 3, two posterior equal, the anterior more or less reduced, frequently greatly so. Stamens 6, the upper 3 sterile, with cruciate anthers, the lower 3 fertile. Pistil 2-to 3-celled. Capsules loculicidally dehiscent.
