Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Small to medium-sized annual or perennial herbs.

Stems:

Roots: Fibrous root system; roots thin or tuberous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, distichous or spiralled. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in various types of terminal and/or axillary thyrses or fascicles of 1–flowered to several–flowered cymes subtended by bracts, these similar to upper reduced leaves, not folded nor spathelike. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or bisexual (perfect) and staminate, actinomorphic or zygomorphic. Calyx of 3 sepals, distinct, subequal. Corolla of 3 petals, white to purple or violet, rarely yellow, distinct, subequal, not clawed. Stamens 2–3, opposite the sepals, staminodes 3–4, opposite the petals (if 4, then 1 also opposite a sepal); filaments glabrous or pubescent. Ovary superior, 3-carpellate, 3-celled; ovules 1 to numerous, in 1–2 rows per cell.

Fruit: Capsules 3-celled. Seeds 1 to numerous per cell.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: