Stemless or shortly caulescent, rhizomatous herbs. Roots thick, sometimes with tuberous swellings. Leaves usually basal, petioled or subpetioled linear to oblanceolate or lanceolate, many-nerved. Inflorescence a spike or raceme. Flowers solitary or fascicled in the axil of each bract. Perianth segments fleshy, campanulate, free or with a broad tube and short lobes, equal, with 1 vein, violet or white. Anthers 6-8, subsessile or pedicels short, attached near base of perianth, dorsifixed, introrse. Ovary superior, sessile, ovoid to subglobose, 3-4-celled; ovules axile, 2 in each locule; style short and thick; stigma capitate or peltate. Ovary wall rupturing early in the growth of the seeds which are therefore exposed during most of their development. Seeds black, globose or slightly elongate, with fleshy testa; perianth persistent.
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