Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Large acaulescent perennial herbs from stout rhizomes.

Stems:

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, equitant, crowded in a distichous fans, with tough longitudinal bast fibers. Blades sword–shaped, strongly keeled. Apex acute. Base sessile. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in large, terminal, elongate, paniculate inflorescences, the branches with flowers arising from alternate bracts, peduncles with progressively smaller bracts, pedicels articulate just below the flower. Flowers bisexual (perfect), zygomorphic. Tepals 6, subequal, erect, forming a tube, but connate only at base, persistent. Stamens 6, exserted; filaments slightly flattened, inner ones slightly longer. Ovary superior, elongate, 3-celled; ovules numerous per cell; style terete (cylindrical); stigma small, narrow.

Fruit: Capsules; elongate; loculicidal. Seeds numerous; glossy black; flattened; with a small wing.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Terrestrial open habitat.

Elevation Range: