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Perennial herbs with annual leaves and flowers. Corm globose or ovoid; tunic fibrous to papery. Leaves 1 to several, mainly basal, ensiform, lanceolate or linear; flat to almost terete in section; tough, fibrous. Scape erect, usually with a few reduced leaves. Spike secund or distichous. Bracts green, keeled, the inner one shorter than outer. Flowers zygomorphic, rarely (not in Australia) actinomorphic. Perianth tube straight to curved, funnel-shaped; lobes sometimes clawed, sub-equal or unequal and bilabiate. Stamens usually unilateral, arched; anthers linear, slightly sagittate. Style filiform, the 3 branches entire, widened at apices. Capsule ellipsoidal to ovoid, papery to leathery. Seeds numerous, flat, winged.
Leaves few to several, the lower (2)3 entirely sheathing and mostly below ground (cataphylls); foliage leaves usually synanthous (more or less fully developed at flowering), or hysteranthous (developing after flowering on the same shoot or borne on separate shoots), few to several, basal or cauline, blades well developed or reduced and largely to entirely sheathing, lanceolate to linear and plane or filiform and terete, the margins, midrib and sometimes also other veins thickened and hyaline (margins sometimes winged).
Summer-green perennial. Corm globose; tunic fibrous, brown. Leaves often ensiform, equitant. Spike loose, unilateral or distichous. Flowers showy, each with 2 large, herbaceous, lanceolate, green spathe-valves (inner valve bifid); tube funnel-shaped, gradually dilated, curved; iobes usually unequal, 3 upper larger. Stamens asymmetric. Style-branches entire. Capsule oblong, globose to cylindrical. Seeds many. Spp. c. 180 of Europe, Asia, tropical and S. Africa. Adventive spp. 2.
Cormogenous herbs. Inflorescences terminal or sometimes axillary in spikes, rarely secund. Flowers ± zygomorphic, sessile, various in colour, each in a single spathe. Tepals unequal, united into an often curved tube. Stamens 3, often arched, free. Style entire; stigmas 3, obovate, alternating with the outer tepals. Capsule loculicidal, included. Seeds often winged.
Flowers zygomorphic (actinomorphic in a few species from South Africa, Zaire and Madagascar); tepals united in a well developed, sometimes very long perianth tube; subequal, or unequal with the uppermost broader and arching to hooded over the stamens, the lower 3 narrower, shorter or longer than the upper.
Inflorescence a spike with flowers secund or, in a few species, distichous); floral bracts usually green, soft to firm, sometimes dry and brown at anthesis, relatively large, the inner usually smaller than the outer.
Stamens unilateral and arcuate; filaments included or exserted from the perianth tube; anthers unilateral (symmetrical in actinomorphic flowers).
Perennial herbs with corms, aerial parts dying back annually; corms with coriaceous to fibrous and reticulate tunics.
Seeds usually many, with a broad membranous wing about the circumference (wingless in a few species).
Style exserted; style branches simple, expanded above and sometimes apically bilobed.
Capsules large and slightly inflated.
Stem terete, simple or branched.
