Herbs perennial. Rhizomes horizontal, long. Stems erect or ascending, usually simple. Leaves alternate. Panicles terminal; cincinni with several flowers, proximal involucral bracts nearly leaflike, distal ones small; bracts enveloping inflorescence axis, membranous. Flowers actinomorphic. Sepals free, shallowly boat-shaped, often enlarging and persistent in fruit. Petals free, white, blue, purple, or greenish yellow, sometimes spotted, ovate-elliptic, ovate-orbicular, or obovate, sometimes clawed. Stamens 6, all fertile, equal or 3 smaller, or only anterior 3 fertile; filaments glabrous; anther locules oblong, longitudinally dehiscent; antherodes deltoid-lanceolate or sagittate. Ovary 3-loculed; ovules (1--)5--10 per locule. Fruit baccate, globose, 3-valved, indehiscent. Seeds (1--)5--8 per valve, purplish gray, polygonal, slightly flattened; hilum orbicular.
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