Herbs perennial, usually andropolygamous, with short, thick rhizomes and stout, slightly fleshy roots. Stems erect, terete, stout, usually pubescent, leafy, usually enclosed basally by fibers or reticulate fibers formed from disintegrated sheaths. Leaves alternate, sheathed and clasping, broad to narrow, strongly plicately veined, basally usually narrowed. Inflorescence usually a terminal panicle, many flowered. Flowers shortly pedicellate or subsessile, white, yellowish, green, or dark purple-brown, funnelform, cupular to opening flat. Tepals 6, usually free, spreading, persistent in fruit. Stamens 6, inserted at base of tepals; anthers reniform to cordate-orbicular, with locules confluent and dehiscent by an apical valve. Ovary 3-loculed, slightly 3-lobed apically, ovules usually many. Styles 3, short, persistent, stigmatic adaxially. Fruit a septicidal capsule. Seeds several per valve, flattened, narrowly winged.
Fls polygamous; tep 6, free from the ovary, narrowed at base, not glandular; stamens 6; filaments slender, free or adnate to the perianth at the very base; anthers extrorse, obcordate, with confluent thecae; ovary superior, 3-lobed, each lobe terminated by a short style; capsule ovoid, septicidal, subtended by the withered perianth; seeds large, flat, the small embryo surrounded by a broad wing; tall, coarse, poisonous herbs, perennial from a stout rhizome, with large broad lvs and a terminal panicle of green or purple fls. 30, N. Hemisphere.