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Tufted cormous perennials. Roots fleshy-fibrous or tuberous. Leaves clustered, sessile on corm, sometimes pseudopetiolate, sheathing towards base; lamina linear to narrowly oblong; base ±persisting as tunic. Inflorescence ±spike-like, 1-10-flowered, axillary, shorter than leaves, bracteate; peduncle short. Flowers bisexual or male, actinomorphic, ±sessile. Perianth fused with style at base forming a filiform column above ovary, marcescent; lobes 6, petaloid; column eventually fracturing. Stamens 6, ±attached to style; anthers dehiscing by slits, latrorse. Ovary inferior, 2-or 3-locular; ovules few; placentation axile. Fruit capsule-like, indehiscent or dehiscent by irregular rupture. Seeds elongated, with beak lateral to hilum; testa black, shiny.
Leaves sessile, linear-elliptic or lanceolate, ± plicate, becoming pseudopetiolate, sheathing at the base, glabrous or sparsely thinly pilose on the margins and nervation, outer leaves reduced and somewhat cataphyll-like, sheathing at the base with broad hyaline margins, new leaves arising successively from within the bases of the older leaves which eventually disintegrate into fibrous remnants; indumentum of 2-armed hairs or 3–12-unequally armed (stellate) hairs, whitish or brown; new leaves produced successively within older leaf bases.
Scapose herbs from corm-like rhizomes, scatteringly pilose throughout; leaves narrow, grass-like (in Panama), basal; inflorescence mostly 1-flowered; perianth segments yellowish, 6, equal, barely united at the base but appearing to have a long tube because of the narrow beak of the ovary; stamens 6, the filaments united to the base of the perianth; pistil 3-celled, inferior, provided with a long narrow beak; fruit rather fleshy and indehiscent.
Flowers 1–many, subsessile on the rhizome or spicately arranged on a short scape; ovary borne amongst the leaf bases or enveloped by subtending bracts; lower part of perianth fused into an elongated narrow tube (perianth tube) bearing the perianth segments, stigma and anthers well above the ovary; perianth segments spreading, acute to obtuse, yellow adaxially and sparsely pilose beneath; anthers sagittate, latrorse.
Thickly rhizomatous herbs, hairy or glabrous. Leaves radical, often petiolate, linear to broadly elliptic. Inflorescences racemes or spikes, sometimes head-like, many-to few-flowered. Flowers with the tepals united in a very short to elongate tube. Stamens free, inserted at the mouth of the perigone-tube. Fruits fleshy, indehiscent or irregularly dehiscent, often with a persistent beak.
Herbaceous geophytes, acaulescent; rhizome vertical, sometimes branched, surmounted by a ± dense coat of fibrous leaf remnants and bearing scattered contractile roots.
Fruit indehiscent, crowned by the persistent perianth tube and enclosed within the old leaf base remnants or subtending bract.
Inflorescences 1–many, arising continuously throughout the season, borne near the base of the plant.
Seeds ellipsoid, black and glossy, strophiolate, sometimes striate, the testa smooth.
