Perennial herbs; bulb of many fleshy scales, lacking a tunic. Cauline leaves alternate, rarely whorld; sessile to subsessile, linear to linear-lanceolate. Inflorescence terminal, solitary or a raceme. Tepals 6, free, white, yellow, greenish or reddish to purplish, nectariferous near base adaxially; nectarines usually narrowly grooved at tepal bases. Stamens 6, filaments filiform, sometimes hairy. Anthers dorsifixed versatile. Pistil tricarpellary, ovary trilocular, axile placentation; ovules many per locule. Style elongated, stigma 3-lobed. Fruit a loculicidal capsule; seeds many, flat, narrowly winged all round.