Perennial, glabrous, scapigerous herbs. Leaves simple, mostly radical, exstipulate, alternate, petiolate with basal nerves and brown streaks con¬taining tanin cells in the epidermis, cordate, reniform or ovate, cauline leaves sessile or subsessile. Scape arising in the axil of a leaf, often bearing a single leaf, and a solitary terminal flower. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, 5-merous. Sepals 5, free or somewhat united at the base, imbricate. Petals 5, free, white, imbricate, entire or sometimes fimbriate. Stamens 5, alter¬nating with petals; staminodes 5, opposite the petals. Gynoecium 3-4-car¬pellary, syncarpous, superior or rarely half inferior, usually 3-4-celled below, 1-celled above; placentation axile below, parietal above. Fruit a membr¬anous loculicidal capsule, opening by 3-4 valves, surrounded by persistent staminodes; seeds many, minute, non endospermic.