Shrubby plants, usually with a trunk. Leaves in rosettes at the base, stiff, often toothed with pungent apices. Flowers nodding, pedicellate, in erect panicles. Perianth campanulate, segments free. Filaments fleshy, included; anthers small, hardly distinguished from the filaments. Ovary superior; style usually short, stigma 3-lobed. Fruit a capsule or fleshy and berry-like.